FSG's focus on young signings - is it fatally flawed?

[gkmacca]

If we signing the best young players then this strategy could work.

However, we seem to target the level just below **top class** even for younger players probably because they dont ask for high wages.

It's far too risk-laden an enterprise to be sure of identifying 'the best young players' - if by young one means under 20 - because you're really just identifying potential. I don't think the club has done badly with that at all. If by young one means players in the 20-23 bracket, then, yes, we usually lose out as far as the best are concerned, but again you're largely going for potential rather than empirically proven stars. But as I said in the invisible post above, the latter strategy is about as new as pass and move. It used to work better mainly because there was a much more organic process of schooling the signings in the reserves, and partly because, well, we were just better at spotting young talent.

 

[Best Believe It]

It's far too risk-laden an enterprise to be sure of identifying 'the best young players' - if by young one means under 20 - because you're really just identifying potential. I don't think the club has done badly with that at all. If by young one means players in the 20-23 bracket, then, yes, we usually lose out as far as the best are concerned, but again you're largely going for potential rather than empirically proven stars. But as I said in the invisible post above, the latter strategy is about as new as pass and move. It used to work better mainly because there was a much more organic process of schooling the signings in the reserves, and partly because, well, we were just better at spotting young talent.

Presumably it's also easier to integrate those sorts of signings because as you say you had the reserve team functioning as a 'learn how we play' school, but also because we had a defined style of play and also because we were winning trophies regularly. There's greater scrutiny on youngsters coming into teams who aren't competing and more expected of them; whereas, as a crude example, Man Utd under Ferguson were able to get away with a number of fairly average young players because there was an already well defined system of play and a winning mentality.

 

[StevieM]

It's flawed if you're expecting immediate results.

 

[Jürgen4PM]

Bang on stevie