Lang and Gelhardt | Vital Football

Lang and Gelhardt

FrancosLoveChild

Vital Football Hero
Apparantly these 2 players have been causing quite the interest from bigger clubs, the latter apparantly wanted by many top teams in England and might push for a starting place at just 16 for us this season.

Looks like we're doing something right for once in our academy so all credit to the staff for that.

Has anyone ever seen Gelhardt play? It seems like he has been playing for the England U16s too.

Surely a prospect we should try to keep and develop first team football here than rot in the academy and being flogged on loan from a top side.
 
Saw him in the u18 final v Luton only. From that he looked very talented. 1-2yrs younger than everyone else but probably our best player. Good on the ball, good awareness, strong, fairly mobile without being rapid. If he grows upwards and adds aerial ability then it would be even better.

He reminded me of the Sherringham type of striker to be honest. I suppose Waghorn would be our closest comparison in recent times.

But that was only 90 minutes, albeit in a tough and competitive game.
 
There is a fine line to be trod with both players. If we keep them and develop them then they may save us millions in the long run, but also may turn out to be worth nothing. We've had a few supremely talented strikers come through the youth ranks who were courted by big names.

John Marsden was snaffled up by Celtic and hailed as a wonderkid but has just been released by Telford after 3 goals in 30 games this season. Rakish Bingham was linked with Villa and others at one point but is now plying his trade at Hamilton after finally starting to show some return on his potential. Tommy Amos was also being linked with all the top clubs after scoring (allegedly) 300 goals in 3 and a bit seasons in the youth teams round Liverpool but was released by Martinez and fell off the radar after knocking about the Liverpool leagues for a few years.

So do we take a good bid/tribunal fee and sell on clause now or do we risk it on development to see them accrue greater value or be released for nothing? Of the kids we saw last season the one I would be most excited about is Victor Maffeo, if he's half the player his brother is turning out to be then he'll be a gem.

Whichever way we look at it we're a selling club, so we need to show ourselves willing to accept decent bids on good prospects.

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What I would add that is there is something different about Lang, unlike others before him he's gone out on loan and played well. That he can cut it in League 2 at 19 bodes well for his career, and for his value to us!
 
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We may not get much of a choice to be honest if the big clubs want them and the player wants to go they will be gone. The tribunal fee would likely be low so a non tribunal fee would probably not be that big either. So I'm not sure if any offer would be worth giving up that potential.

If we did get a surprisingly good offer and sid have the chance to sway it Cook and the club will be watching train and seeing how they compare to other players at their age to try and weigh up the chances of them making it vs fee on off. Without seeing Gelhardt play i can't pass any comment on him and while I've liked what I've seen in Lang I've not seen enough to really judge. But like Gaz said Lang has done what so many of our supposed top prospects couldn't do in finding a league club to go out on loan and do well and that is very encouraging. The last young lads who impressed on loan with their first taste of first team football were probably Dicko and McMannaman - so hopefully Lang will be a long overdue success story if he stays.
 
I may be wrong but I can only recall Lee Nichols and Michael Millett (RIP) as previous England internationals in the past couple of decades. Lee had a great initial loan and seemed destined for big things and then he didn't get enough games and went backward. A lesson for us there perhaps.
But its a hell of a gamble for the national team coach to pick an unknown league one youth player as striker for the England team. Nowhere else on the pitch gets more scrutiny. It's a big deal that we have him. Let's hope his development only goes well from here. As someone else said previously, him + Lang could be a pairing at some point.
 
Jensen Weir looks like another to look out for. Scotland u-16 international. Same year as Gelhardt. Looks like he'll break into the u18s this coming season. Midfielder.
 
I may be wrong but I can only recall Lee Nichols and Michael Millett (RIP) as previous England internationals in the past couple of decades. Lee had a great initial loan and seemed destined for big things and then he didn't get enough games and went backward. A lesson for us there perhaps.

I'd have to disagree with your summary of Lee Nicholls. We heard he was destined for big things though no manager gave him the chance but did impress on loan at Northampton by all accounts.
However it was when he was given a run of games at Latics in the brief Coyle era that it became clear that he wasn't good enough for what we wanted or needed at that time & not due to not getting enough games - not a bad shot stopper but to static on his line & too prone to gaffs (a la Zulte Waregem at home). Seeing the goals he conceded last season for Franchise FC it would appear that appearing regularly for them hasn't helped either
 
Apparently he managed to keep about 12 clean sheets last season in all competitions and signed an extension on his contract. He is still only young in terms of goalkeepers and has the potential to improve.
 
I'd have to disagree with your summary of Lee Nicholls. We heard he was destined for big things though no manager gave him the chance but did impress on loan at Northampton by all accounts.
However it was when he was given a run of games at Latics in the brief Coyle era that it became clear that he wasn't good enough for what we wanted or needed at that time & not due to not getting enough games - not a bad shot stopper but to static on his line & too prone to gaffs (a la Zulte Waregem at home). Seeing the goals he conceded last season for Franchise FC it would appear that appearing regularly for them hasn't helped either

Come on, he had a great season on loan, then played 9 high-pressured games for us. The point is he then went from December 2013 until September 2015 with no games at all. Fine if he's too big a risk to play, then loan him out. But a player who is trying to break through and on the cusp of achieving something will achieve nothing when he's in the reserves. We all know what happened next. Barnsley was the performance of someone whose mind is not in the right place at all. And who could blame him. My point is that we can't bring Lang back and have him lose all of last season's momentum by being frozen out if he doesnt make an impact in 15 minutes from the bench in the Carabao Cup.
 
I think Nicholls is a great shot stopper but very error prone, too error prone to make it as a top keeper.

If he'd have played more games for us I don't think he'd have recovered from the errors he made in his run of games but more likely been further exposed with his confidence dipping futher and we'd have all said we need a replacement.

Just look at the 2 games he got in Caldwells L1 season the Maddison free kick and the nightmare against Barnsley. If he was good enough those where the two games where he needed to show it and he just made horrific mistakes.
 
Nicholls downfalls were poor concentration at times & not just remaining static as crosses come into his area. Just watch the goals from our game at the back end of last season:
Goal 1 - Come slightly off his line, goes back & then as the cross comes in & passes within a couple of feet of him he just stares at it & leaves Grigg with a tap in
Goal 2 - An own goal admittedly but as the defender headed it the ball was low & on the edge of the 6 yard box without a Latics player challenging. Nicholls should have shouted & had an easy claim but he was tooted to his line
Goal 3 - Looks like he's coming out to claim it, then doesn't as he's misjudged it & caught in no man's land when the header put goalward. Makes no attempt to dive for it as it passes within a foot of him
Goal 4 - Comes for it, then doesn't & is caught in no man's land as grigg lobs him
Goal 5 - Not as bad as the others but again should have come off his line with some conviction to narrow down the angle but doesn't. Doesn't make himself big enough either

He's just good or consistent enough. That's why he spent so long not being picked by successive managers & why he was dropped not long after getting his chance. Also why Bristol Rovers manager described him as "hit & miss" during his loan spell there
 
Apparently he managed to keep about 12 clean sheets last season in all competitions and signed an extension on his contract. He is still only young in terms of goalkeepers and has the potential to improve.

and isnt this sort of thing what were suposed to be looking at an all.
 
Lee Nicholls wasted two years of his career sitting in the stands when he could have gone on loan and played every week. It was obvious to every man and his dog that he wasn’t getting in over Al Habsi, Carson, Jussi etc. He only has himself to blame for not making it here. Russia you are right about Lang and that is why he will almost certainly go out on loan again this season rather than doing a Nicholls as PC believes that players need to play rather than sit on their arses. As for Gelhardt he got himself an agent earlier in the year which is probably bad news along with him and his family all being Kopites (Liverpool are one of the clubs after him). I saw that England squad he was in and about 90% of them were players from the big 6-8 so this lad must have something. If you’re good enough you’re old enough and if we don’t get him on a contract and in the first team squad, we risk losing him for peanuts. Fulham showed faith in their 16-17 year old kid and he’s just fired them back to the Prem..
 
I think Nicholls is a great shot stopper but very error prone, too error prone to make it as a top keeper.

If he'd have played more games for us I don't think he'd have recovered from the errors he made in his run of games but more likely been further exposed with his confidence dipping futher and we'd have all said we need a replacement.

Just look at the 2 games he got in Caldwells L1 season the Maddison free kick and the nightmare against Barnsley. If he was good enough those where the two games where he needed to show it and he just made horrific mistakes.
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Maybe he is a little error prone, but look at the likes of Green, Hart etc. who were considered top keepers and the errors they have made in England shirts. Most keepers are susceptible to the odd misjudgement and off game and unfortunately their errors cost goals but midfield and forwards make mistakes almost every game and get away with it. Keepers are a strange breed and they are subject to criticism from fans more than any other player, but as in the case of Karius in the European Cup Final who received death threats, a lot of the abuse is over the top. Young keepers make mistakes and it is generally accepted that they improve with age so to right Nicholls off at 25 or 26 is short sighted in my opinion.

By the way the Barnsley game was a shambles for the whole club and to single out Nicholls is totally unjustified.
 
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Maybe he is a little error prone, but look at the likes of Green, Hart etc. who were considered top keepers and the errors they have made in England shirts. Most keepers are susceptible to the odd misjudgement and off game and unfortunately their errors cost goals but midfield and forwards make mistakes almost every game and get away with it. Keepers are a strange breed and they are subject to criticism from fans more than any other player, but as in the case of Karius in the European Cup Final who received death threats, a lot of the abuse is over the top. Young keepers make mistakes and it is generally accepted that they improve with age so to right Nicholls off at 25 or 26 is short sighted in my opinion.

By the way the Barnsley game was a shambles for the whole club and to single out Nicholls is totally unjustified.

Nicholls ratio of clangers to games for us was alarmingly high - you can't risk playing a keeper who messes up so regulary. Hart and Green were certainly mistake prone but the difference was they managed to string together enough good games in between their clangers at a much higher level to justify being picked the rest of the time. Nicholls couldn't manage that, it seemed every time he played he made bad mistakes so it's not suprising he wasn't given more chances as his performances didn't suggest he was too high risk.

As for the Barnsley game no one is suggesting any of our lot were much use that day, but at least 2 of goals Nicholls conceeded were diabolical - I'd have expected literally any professional keeper no matter how young or inexperienced to save the 3rd and 4th comfortably. To let in one of those goals in any game would've been bad but to conceed 2 such soft goals in one go was damning - especially when he needed to take that chance to prove he was worth keeping on the books. We were garbage that day and well beaten but Nicholls deserved all the critisism he got for those 2 goals, we can't blame the defence or anyone but him for those clangers. Every keeper makes the odd howler but you can't do so many in so few games and expect any manager to put any faith in you.
 
KDZ the record for Nicholls for us is 12 games played and 3 clean sheets kept. 25% clean sheets is not a bad record for a young keeper. It is also a record he has maintained with MK Dons playing 61 games and keeping 15 clean sheets. The stats for Nick Pope who is currently with the England squad are only marginally better at 34% having kept 12 clean sheets in 35 appearances this season. I know the comparison is blurred by the fact that they play in different leagues but I still think it is a valid comparison given that the standard of opposition in both leagues is comparable to the team they play in.

I am not saying that Nicholls will ever be a top keeper but he is certainly not the donkey that some portray.

To give just a little bit more of a comparison Nicholls kept 10 clean sheets in 41 in the same league that our own Christian Walton managed 19 in 31. However the comparison of the players in front of him should also be taken into account, given that our defence was far superior.
 
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I'm by no means saying that he is the worst keeper that I've ever seen but from what he has shown so far in his career, he wasn't good enough to play for Latics and the fact that he never became the #1 keeper here under numerous managers is down to that fact & nothing to do with not being given the chance
 
I don't think that anyone is saying he didn't get the chance MB. What we are saying is that when the chance came he didn't take it. My point is that this doesn't necessarily mean he is not a decent keeper, his stats tell a different tale, I believe that as a young keeper he made a few errors but has learnt from them and I believe as he matures he will prove to be a decent mid level keeper. Your point about the number 1 spot is true he probably wasn't good enough to take the jersey at Wigan but that still doesn't make him a bad player. What you have to remember there are ten outfield places up for grabs but only 1 keeper giving less opportunity to make the team.
 
My initial response was to Russia who said that he didn't get enough games & went backwards & that was a lesson to be learnt for the club with youth players - my point was that he didn't get the game time because he wasn't good enough for us at any of the levels we were at when he was here & certainly wasn't anywhere near as good as what we had challenging for that position with him.
All the games in the world wouldn't have changed that fact - and seeing him recently against Latics for MK Dons confirmed to me that he would never have been good enough for where the club wants to be

You're making a different point to Russia

You're right, there's worse keepers out there &, from Latics' experience, some of them are even at top flight clubs (or were in the case of Bogdan & that fella from Stoke). IMO Nicholls is a mid to lower level Lge 1 or Lge 2 keeper - nowt to be ashamed of & I wish I'd been that bad!!!

He is however nearly 26 now & I think its very debatable how much better he's going to get. He's at his level