Signing a guy from the Swedish league vs an established HG starter at a championship club. You’ll always pay a premium both on wages and transfer fee.
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Player Archie Gray
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Signing a guy from the Swedish league vs an established HG starter at a championship club. You’ll always pay a premium both on wages and transfer fee.
I feel as though there's been a false narrative about how good he was going to be. He's been versatile but nothing like some kind of special player that he was being mooted as at the time we signed him.
We don't know how good he is going to be yet, part of the fun. He's ahead of most other 19 year olds in the England set-up and already has 2 full seasons of high level men's football at 19. Starting for England U21s at the U21 Euros while being the 5th youngest player at the tournament, up against players 3/4 years older. Still a long way to go and hopefully Frank can fix up some of the parts of his game he needs to work on.
This might seem a daft question but he's 19, so how is he up against players 3/4 years older. don't they have to be under 21 to qualify for the U21 tournament?
All players born after Jan 1st 2002 are eligible, they would have been U21 when qualifying started a couple of years ago. Current top scorer is a 23 year old German, probably has a chance of making their world cup squad next year. Gray would still be eligible to play in this competition in 2029!
Some of the guys criticising him seemingly have no idea the step up it takes from U8 level to Championship/premier League especially.
He could mirror a career like Milner IMO.
He could mirror a career like Milner IMO.
Devine is 20, 21 in a fortnight, and in spells in League One, the Championship and the top division in Belgium at age 19-20 hasn't shown the level of performance that Gray did at Leeds at age 17.
If anybody can get our youth more properly integrated, it has to be Frank. I expect them all to be given a real look and real chances. I have great faith Frank will take care of them properly.
The fact of the matter is there has just been very little talent among our U18 players, whether academy produced or purchased from outside, for the last decade-plus. You can't ask managers to use players who aren't good enough for the Premier League.
Jack Clarke is probably the best player of that group, maybe Kyle Walker-Peters. Marcus Edwards, Troy Parrott, Winks and Skipp, CCV, Tanganga, this is a bunch of fringe PL players at the very best.
It would be nice if a couple of those guys were reliable longer-term squad players for us and maybe a better developmental system might have gotten there, but that's the ceiling.
There should be a lot more than that in our current group, but almost entirely from ones we've paid relatively high fees for from outside the club. Our academy is just utterly barren. Come on Mikey!
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And you don't think that level of versatility to be an asset?
See Paul Madely for details
Yeah being a utility player is an asset. What I'm referring to is articles such as the one below, I was expecting the next Steven Gerrard or something.
Archie Gray: What Leeds Wonderkid Will Bring to Tottenham | Opta Analyst
Archie Gray had never played for Leeds a year ago; now he's making a big-money move to Tottenham. Here, we take a detailed look at his game.
theanalyst.com
Yeah being a utility player is an asset. What I'm referring to is articles such as the one below, I was expecting the next Steven Gerrard or something.
Archie Gray: What Leeds Wonderkid Will Bring to Tottenham | Opta Analyst
Archie Gray had never played for Leeds a year ago; now he's making a big-money move to Tottenham. Here, we take a detailed look at his game.
He still could reach that level.
Kid is 19 and has all the tools physically, technically and mentally. He just needs to learn that bit of irrational confidence that the very best players have and the fear of mistakes will leave him. If that happens we will start to see the 17 year old kid that ran rings around Chelsea playing the 6 at Leeds.
It's true, not many 7 year olds have done it successfully...
Been saying this when we were first linked to Gray. Was actually extremely happy when it looked like Brentford had beaten us to the signing tbh.
I just hope we're not using that one game vs Chelsea as if he plays like that all the time. I mean I've seen Harry Winks have some very good games when he first made it into the main team.
Year and a half older and can't even get in the England U20 squad