Gives the ball away constantly. Sell
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Player Lucas Bergvall
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
- Start date
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Every young player we’ve bought in the last three years should be, or have been, out on loan. If we had done that then they and us as a squad would be in a better position than they are now.
(Proper first team peak players should have been bought instead).
We are desperate for club-trained players and if Lucas and Archie stay with us for one more year, they will qualify for that status. For that reason alone I doubt they are going anywhere.
Was totally misprofiled as a 10 by Frank. He’s a Dembele-like midfielder who needs time to learn the tactical side of the game.
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Love the kid and ideally he'd stay here next season and contribute. But I can't see him and Archie getting enough minutes, so one gotta go out on loan...and if it were up to me, that'd be the Swede. Think a season under Le Bris, Hurzeler, Andrews or even Fat Frank would do him a world of good.
We've paid the front end price of getting experience for Bergvall and Gray. Sending them off on loan feels like a wasted investment. I'd be fine seeing both staying and competing for playing time. What they do with the opportunity is down to them. Eventually, both will be good players.
Fucking hell, in the transfer thread there are people constantly bemoaning the fact that we didn't pick up the likes of Scott and Wharton before Bournemouth and Palace and in here, there are people slating and wanting rid of Bergvall.
Scott and Wharton wouldn't have lasted five minutes before some of this fanbase were calling them shit and useless.
Complaining that we didn't get one young talent but show no patience to nurture the one we did get.
It would be funny if it wasn't so ridiculous.
Oh and remember, we beat Barca to get the lad FFS.
Scott and Wharton wouldn't have lasted five minutes before some of this fanbase were calling them shit and useless.
Complaining that we didn't get one young talent but show no patience to nurture the one we did get.
It would be funny if it wasn't so ridiculous.
Oh and remember, we beat Barca to get the lad FFS.
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Guess the thing is RDZ didn't give bergvall any time at all, maybe because of the situation but it's possible if we do upgrade the midfield in the summer he's playing time will be extremely limited still, stunting his development
So I can see why people would want him sent out on loan
Shiny new toy syndrome
Lack of reality and understanding syndrome too?
I think it was largely that the situation called for experienced players that RDZ felt could handle that enormous pressure. Seen it a few times with youth loanees where the managers have taken them out the firing line for crunch games to protect them. I don't know how much we can really read into those line ups because he did trust young players and bring through a handful of academy players at Brighton. Could see him liking both Gray and Bergvall and I think RDZ does a lot of individual work to get the best out of players so no doubt both would benefit from staying. Gray maybe at a slight advantage since he'll be around from the start of preseason and is said to be one of the best in training, Bergvall obviously later due to WC.
Spot on.
Any manager would love players like Gray and Bergvall because they've got all the attributes to mould into top players, it was just risky for both the players and the club to throw them into that cauldron at the end.
I think Gray and Bergvall have huge potential, but I think Scott and Wharton were far more primed and ready for the PL by the time they arrived, so less patience was needed. Both were like 1.5-2 years older and had clearly defined positions, whereas Gray and Bergvall were much bigger punts imo - a kid from a 3rd/4th tier league and a guy who had only played a handful of games in his supposed best position.
I'm all for being patient, but I don't think a club with our size and expectations is actually in a great position to develop players as raw as Gray and Bergvall as it's hard to get them the minutes needed without compromising standards. If you're gonna sign 18 year olds typically you want them to be absolute freaks already playing in a top league or you have a smart development plan for them (and we're not well-run enough for that). And Gray and Bergvall were young and raw even by Brighton/Bournemouth standards.
I'd love both to succeed, but I think at least one will need a loan this season. Simply not enough minutes to go round for them both to get the required minutes.
I made a similar point in another thread, that it's really hard for us, in the position we're in, to be giving too many minutes to youngsters.
Our squad isn't strong enough yet to support their growth and our ambitions have to be higher than the type of club that can.
We kinda fall into that spot where we're too big but yet, not big enough.
If we get somebody we KNOW is better, loan him out or sell him. But not until then. We need some depth this year. He is plenty good for the bench IMO.
Yeah - I'm starting to think it's a mistake for bigger clubs to think they can operate the same way as Brighton and Bournemouth tbh.
Chelsea basically tried to do the Brighton model writ large and it's been a disaster, and I think our sudden swing towards youth a couple seasons ago was done with similar intentions (and yielded similar results).
The thing is Brighton especially are just so well run behind the scenes and have access to more data than we do due as Tony Bloom's betting company created the most cutting-edge analytics tools. Plus expectations are far lower to begin with - if these clubs have an off-season no-one cares whereas at Spurs the pressure to succeed is much higher.
On paper we've not done terribly, selling Vuskovic alone could make this whole endeavour a big financial success, but it hasn't led to any success at all on the pitch as kids this young typically take 4-5 years to peak and that's if your scouting is really good to begin with.
Regardless of their potential, making our squad reliant on relatively unproven kids like Gray, Bergvall, Sarr, Odobert, Tel is a big reason we've seen a huge drop-off in the league these past 2 seasons. 2 key positions - CM and LW have been almost fully entrusted to kids at times.
If you do a bad job of recruiting like mid-table team, you're gonna end up even lower than mid-table. As a big club we need to get the balance right and not pretend we're something we're not.
Sarr will be 24 at the start of the season, older than the likes of Scott & Wharton
Yeah fair, maybe not the best example. The others were all 18-19 when signed, though.
I do think Sarr and Udogie are extensions of the same thing, though. Essentially youthful punts bought from bottom half teams in France and Italy who had done fairly well but were being bought for potential more than proven ability.
We need to absolutely keep making these types of signings, but when you've got relatively young players like Udogie and Sarr in the 11 AND a bunch of teens, it can be a bit like the blind leading the blind.
It's all about balance and I think we've indexed too hard on youth these past 3 seasons at the expense of proven quality.
In terms of age distribution, I don't think midfield was as big an issue as some made out.
Bentancur 28, Palhinha 30, Bissouma 29, Sarr 23, Gallagher 26 brought in in Jan for 2 positions and then Gray and Bergvall as the younger options. Problem is half those senior players aren't reliable, Bentancur misses large parts of every season, Bissouma both injury and discipline problems plus both him and Sarr had to go off to AFCON, Sarr wasn't quite the same after the opening handful of games and Gallagher didn't exactly hit the ground running. Defo agree we've had to rely on them too much, particularly in the most injury hit periods when it's probably the hardest for them to make an impact in a weakened side.
True but 2 seasons ago we didn't have Palhinha or Gallagher and Bentancur was fresh off a long term injury. We left ourselves waaaay too reliant on youth in CM in Ange's 2nd season.