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Player Archie Gray
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
- Start date
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Yeah lad needs a loan. With this much first team PL experience under his belt it shouldn't be hard to find a bottom end PL or upper end Champ team that will play him in midfield.
He's so young and has some really promising qualities but he's nowhere near top 6 quality yet and we can't just carry a player in such a key position in the vain hope he suddenly makes a huge leap in development.
I worry that due to his fee there will be internal pressure to keep him at the club, but reality is what he needs is consistent minutes in midfield and we can't afford to give him that at Spurs right now. Especially as he's blocking Bergvall's path to minutes, who genuinely does look like an elite talent.
It's insane, but we'll have had 2 seasons lower mid table finish and still "not found time" to bed in our youngsters. The worst crime of all is wasting time...
Skipp-level at present. Has suffered a lot under two sub-par managers. No idea what his ceiling is. Definitely talented and not sinking, but not really swimming consistently either. A talented doggy-paddler who should probably be having a 'Skipp at Norwich' season somewhere rather than having to deal with Frank's head-scratching commands.
It's a bit of a chicken-egg thing tbh. We bedded in Bergvall and Gray last season (the latter playing mostly out of position admittedly) and Odobert's getting pretty decent minutes this season given his age. But playing these guys means the overall level of the team tends to drop as they're not reliable top 6 quality players yet...so what's the answer? It's the entire problem with this youth recruitment model we're aiming for - it's simply not compatible with a team that needs results in the short term.
Chelsea are doing to the same to an extreme level, buying the absolute best-in-class youngsters in the world and even they're barely above us in the table. Probably take them another year or two to truly start competing, and that's after spending a billion quid.
I think this approach only really works if you're either incredibly good at scouting and find the absolute wonderkids that are instantly ready to play at the very top level right away, or you're incredibly patient and simply accept it's short term pain for long term gain (which, again, only works if the players do eventually reach the top level).
And as much as I like Bergvall and think he's got huge potential, he wouldn't be getting in as a first choice mid at any of the other "top" teams in the PL - he's still pretty damn rough around the edges which is why Frank doesn't trust him deeper. I hope he starts getting more minutes as an 8 soon, but even with all his promise he's part of the reason we finished 17th last season.
We're basically trying to do some version of the Brighton model but expecting top 6 results. The two don't really add up.
17th and Xth place finishes (14th???- this season). We're already there- the bullet should have been bitten harder...
Bergvall of anyone at this club is the one player we should absolutely be playing as many games as possible until they come good. It feels criminal to me that hes barely gotten any run of starts at the 8- where he is clearly meant to play.
Well I think those league finishes are in part because we spent so much money on Tel, Odobert, Bergvall, Gray, Vuskovic and the other kids that we're in this position in the first place. If we'd spent that 100m+ on first team level players 18 months ago we'd probably not have finished 17th or be quite as poor as we are right now.
In terms of short-term output, you don't get much worse value for 40m than we're getting from Gray right now. We're purely just hoping he comes good and we've backed the right horse. His level of performances in CM could easily be coming from a promising academy kid...which is essentially what he is I suppose.
And I say this as someone that broadly likes all of those signings. The problem is we didn't buy the first team quality players and are relying on the understudies before they're ready.
I appreciate what you are saying- my point is that assertive, quality coaching I think could have guided us through whereas we cheaped out on the most important ingredient in making this sort of scenario work.
I know it's frustrating for all of us. Hope they can go out on loan for a season and be ready to come back and play at a higher level.
Yeah fair - although I think even a really good coach would struggle to achieve top 6 with Gray, Tel, Odobert and Bergvall as regular first teamers. In 2-3 years they might all be world beaters but they're simply not there yet.
We could be doing much better than we are under Frank but the club's recruitment strategy over the past 18 months has very much been a medium-long term one and we're suffering in the short-term as a result.
Joao Palinha was playing for Sporting B in the Portuguese B division at 19
Connor Gallagher was bouncing between Charlton and Swansea on loan at 19.
Gray at 19 had probably his best performance of the season away from home at the European Champions PSG. He won 100% of his tackles and duels that game and also put in a cross that created a goal.
People just seem to lose any kind of rationality with young players when they aren’t completely dominating every game of the week in the PL.
We were playing much worse before Gray came into the team this season. Play him with Gallagher and he’s only going to get better and better.
Connor Gallagher was bouncing between Charlton and Swansea on loan at 19.
Gray at 19 had probably his best performance of the season away from home at the European Champions PSG. He won 100% of his tackles and duels that game and also put in a cross that created a goal.
People just seem to lose any kind of rationality with young players when they aren’t completely dominating every game of the week in the PL.
We were playing much worse before Gray came into the team this season. Play him with Gallagher and he’s only going to get better and better.
I don’t think people expect him to be amazing at 19. It does happen but not too often, it would be good to see something. A couple of nice turns on the ball, good footwork. A great pass or two, change of pace to go by someone. just something.
He’s not showing much if anything just getting through games and even then he still makes mistakes sometimes with the other stuff like simple passes or positionally. If he’s not going to put himself out there. He shouldnt be starting games for us imo
He’s not showing much if anything just getting through games and even then he still makes mistakes sometimes with the other stuff like simple passes or positionally. If he’s not going to put himself out there. He shouldnt be starting games for us imo
That’s us isn’t it?!!!
I would loan him to Coventry if they want him
You are making two different arguments.
This post is about his potential and what could possibly happen in the future. It's a fair post based on an opinion.
What your other posts have been previously are assesments of his current performances which you have stated on quite a few occasions have been "excellent" when they simply haven't. They have been the complete opposite CURRENTLY and I've supported this opinion with his stats for the season which are absolutely appalling (literally the worst in the league stats wise).
Even in a game where he was playing poor recently you posted he's been good and his midfield partner was playing poorly. Stats showed the other player was out performing him by a mile in areas you were critiquing the other player....then when its presented to you your response is "fair enough but I still think he's playing better".
It's fine to have the opinion that he will finally come good ( I don't share this opinion at all btw) but to continuously state he's currently playing very well is factually incorrect.
I’d have him above Bentancur that’s for sure. Will be interesting if we lift the injury curse next season - Gray, Bergvall, Sarr, Gallagher and likely Pahlinha all competing for minutes. Romero, VDV, Danso, Vuskovic also. In a campaign where we are unlikely to be in Europe.
If we didn’t have the usual injury crisis I’d say loan him. But we probably can’t afford to. I guess maybe a loan with immediate right to recall. I reckon Bissouma would be quite a bit better than him tbh, though appreciate there are other reasons to not play Bissouma.
He has had some good performances in a very poor team.
We can meet in the middle that he needs consistency but he’s been as consistent as any of his senior teammates.
This is a badly coached team that is dysfunctional. Gray came into the team and actually made it better.
We play better football with 19 year old Archie Gray in the team.
We spent over £110m on Richarlison and Solanke. Neither are good enough - at least some of the younsters have potential.
Bergvall was £10m - and a bargain.
VdV was young and a great buy
It's not about age
What games are you saying he had a good performance?