Match Thread: Lincoln City v Cheltenham Town

[Pompeyimp2]

Completely agree, he's really learned how to use his body to get in between opponents and the ball. He's clearly much more confident now. Not sure 3 months ago I would have been as bothered about him coming back but he's really kicked on.

Let's hope he has a chat with Morgan Rogers! Better to be playing with Lincoln than warming the bench in the Championship

 

[mikeosullivan]

I think the big thing about Fiorini is that it just emphasises MA's strength - that is, how adept he is at improving players over time.

Poole, Bramall, Fiorini and Whittaker have all improved immensely after difficult starts. Others too I'm sure.

Two things though:-

1. I wish he wasn't so obstinate about players like Maguire who has not performed well enough for 6 months to be in the starting 11, but gets selected (until his injury) for his "experience". Hopefully how well we have played without him will ensure he is on the bench next season to be used in games only when needed.

2. I also hope next year MA puts his improvement skills into improving our own young players, like TJ, House, Kendall, Draper, Roughan, Long, Wright, etc etc rather than doing the job for other clubs.

Forest owe us a big debt of thanks for what he did for Johnson. Arsenal and Man City possibly the same for N-C and Fiorini. Swansea maybe for Whittaker. OK Rogers didn't work out for Man City at Bournemouth, but he still left us better prepared for the Championship than when he arrived. But in terms of LCFC's financial goals, we get nothing for doing this. Johnson will go for £20m plus and MA and LCFC played a huge part in his development.

For me, its two or three loans max next season, and they should be players that will not block the progress of our own - in that there should be no clause in the loan that they must play a certain amount of games.

I know some feel that many of our current young players are "projects", and should maybe go out on loan again next season. I'm a big believer in giving them a chance with us first. Some young players adapt to first team football naturally - given the opportunity. Not given the chance and being sent out on loan to the minefield of non-league, some tend to sink through little fault of their own.

House, Draper, Roughan and Long have all looked at home during their first team appearances so far. Roughan and Long appear to be getting good experience in Ireland, and Roughan especially seems to be getting over his injury woes. But keep them as part of the first team squad next season, and let MA do with them what he does best.Improve them and then (unfortunately, but that is the club we have to be) sell them.

 

[TrickyImps!]

I think the big thing about Fiorini is that it just emphasises MA's strength - that is, how adept he is at improving players over time.

Poole, Bramall, Fiorini and Whittaker have all improved immensely after difficult starts. Others too I'm sure.

Two things though:-

1. I wish he wasn't so obstinate about players like Maguire who has not performed well enough for 6 months to be in the starting 11, but gets selected (until his injury) for his "experience". Hopefully how well we have played without him will ensure he is on the bench next season to be used in games only when needed.

2. I also hope next year MA puts his improvement skills into improving our own young players, like TJ, House, Kendall, Draper, Roughan, Long, Wright, etc etc rather than doing the job for other clubs.

Forest owe us a big debt of thanks for what he did for Johnson. Arsenal and Man City possibly the same for N-C and Fiorini. Swansea maybe for Whittaker. OK Rogers didn't work out for Man City at Bournemouth, but he still left us better prepared for the Championship than when he arrived. But in terms of LCFC's financial goals, we get nothing for doing this. Johnson will go for £20m plus and MA and LCFC played a huge part in his development.

For me, its two or three loans max next season, and they should be players that will not block the progress of our own - in that there should be no clause in the loan that they must play a certain amount of games.

I know some feel that many of our current young players are "projects", and should maybe go out on loan again next season. I'm a big believer in giving them a chance with us first. Some young players adapt to first team football naturally - given the opportunity. Not given the chance and being sent out on loan to the minefield of non-league, some tend to sink through little fault of their own.

House, Draper, Roughan and Long have all looked at home during their first team appearances so far. Roughan and Long appear to be getting good experience in Ireland, and Roughan especially seems to be getting over his injury woes. But keep them as part of the first team squad next season, and let MA do with them what he does best.Improve them and then (unfortunately, but that is the club we have to be) sell them.

On Roughan, I was really impressed with him when he broke through a few years ago.

He was predominantly played at LB, but I think he’s more suited to CB.

Being a left footer, I wouldn’t be shocked (or disappointed) if he is seen as a direct replacement for Joe Walsh.

The fact he’s been on trial with the likes of Southampton & Chelsea goes to show that he’s got potential.

 

[oldgaurd]

He needed the rest and has clearly benefitted from it, but it's not that simple. He's also matured. He could be readily knocked off the ball in the early part of the season, whereas recently he's learned how to deal better with the physical side of the game, not by going mad in the gym but by anticipation, so his body shape is better to withstand a challenge, or he can turn away from trouble.

It's what Man City sent Fiorini here for and recent weeks have shown that after that shaky spell when many of us on here, including me, would have been happy to see him sent back, that MA and co have delivered on what they promised they'd do and most of us on here know diddly squat.

I just hope for Lewis's sake that wherever he is next season it allows him to continue to develop and isn't wasted like Morgan Rogers this season.

Of course he has matured he has benefited from some top coaching .I commented on his talent at the start of the season

 

[oldgaurd]

I think the big thing about Fiorini is that it just emphasises MA's strength - that is, how adept he is at improving players over time.

Poole, Bramall, Fiorini and Whittaker have all improved immensely after difficult starts. Others too I'm sure.

Two things though:-

1. I wish he wasn't so obstinate about players like Maguire who has not performed well enough for 6 months to be in the starting 11, but gets selected (until his injury) for his "experience". Hopefully how well we have played without him will ensure he is on the bench next season to be used in games only when needed.

2. I also hope next year MA puts his improvement skills into improving our own young players, like TJ, House, Kendall, Draper, Roughan, Long, Wright, etc etc rather than doing the job for other clubs.

Forest owe us a big debt of thanks for what he did for Johnson. Arsenal and Man City possibly the same for N-C and Fiorini. Swansea maybe for Whittaker. OK Rogers didn't work out for Man City at Bournemouth, but he still left us better prepared for the Championship than when he arrived. But in terms of LCFC's financial goals, we get nothing for doing this. Johnson will go for £20m plus and MA and LCFC played a huge part in his development.

For me, its two or three loans max next season, and they should be players that will not block the progress of our own - in that there should be no clause in the loan that they must play a certain amount of games.

I know some feel that many of our current young players are "projects", and should maybe go out on loan again next season. I'm a big believer in giving them a chance with us first. Some young players adapt to first team football naturally - given the opportunity. Not given the chance and being sent out on loan to the minefield of non-league, some tend to sink through little fault of their own.

House, Draper, Roughan and Long have all looked at home during their first team appearances so far. Roughan and Long appear to be getting good experience in Ireland, and Roughan especially seems to be getting over his injury woes. But keep them as part of the first team squad next season, and let MA do with them what he does best.Improve them and then (unfortunately, but that is the club we have to be) sell them.

I think next season may be the opportunity to see some signed young talent do well

 

[Red Wimp]

I think the big thing about Fiorini is that it just emphasises MA's strength - that is, how adept he is at improving players over time.

Poole, Bramall, Fiorini and Whittaker have all improved immensely after difficult starts. Others too I'm sure.

Two things though:-

1. I wish he wasn't so obstinate about players like Maguire who has not performed well enough for 6 months to be in the starting 11, but gets selected (until his injury) for his "experience". Hopefully how well we have played without him will ensure he is on the bench next season to be used in games only when needed.

2. I also hope next year MA puts his improvement skills into improving our own young players, like TJ, House, Kendall, Draper, Roughan, Long, Wright, etc etc rather than doing the job for other clubs.

Forest owe us a big debt of thanks for what he did for Johnson. Arsenal and Man City possibly the same for N-C and Fiorini. Swansea maybe for Whittaker. OK Rogers didn't work out for Man City at Bournemouth, but he still left us better prepared for the Championship than when he arrived. But in terms of LCFC's financial goals, we get nothing for doing this. Johnson will go for £20m plus and MA and LCFC played a huge part in his development.

For me, its two or three loans max next season, and they should be players that will not block the progress of our own - in that there should be no clause in the loan that they must play a certain amount of games.

I know some feel that many of our current young players are "projects", and should maybe go out on loan again next season. I'm a big believer in giving them a chance with us first. Some young players adapt to first team football naturally - given the opportunity. Not given the chance and being sent out on loan to the minefield of non-league, some tend to sink through little fault of their own.

House, Draper, Roughan and Long have all looked at home during their first team appearances so far. Roughan and Long appear to be getting good experience in Ireland, and Roughan especially seems to be getting over his injury woes. But keep them as part of the first team squad next season, and let MA do with them what he does best.Improve them and then (unfortunately, but that is the club we have to be) sell them.

You seem to have missed mentioning Grant & Edun.

 

[LA_Imp]

I think the main factor is Fiorini has just got better...

...which was the point of the exercise from Man City's point of view and we have benefitted more as the season has progressed.

So who are the next group of superstars MA can develop for the Premiership to make a mint off?

 

[Chimpimp]

So who are the next group of superstars MA can develop for the Premiership to make a mint off?

The Premiership clubs will make a mint, whatever.

We benefit as well, that's the bit that matters. Our team is of higher standard because of Norton Cuffy, Fiorini, etc

We are developing our own players as well.

Good young players need to play at a lower level than they will eventually reach.

Gainsborough fans probably ask the same question ... and I would give them the same answer.

 

[clanfordimp]

It's all a bit of a catch 22 really. If we just bring our own players in they wouldn't necessarily the quality and be up to the standard required to go straight into the team to play in League 1.

Yet if we go to a Premiership teams and ask them if can borrow a few of their players for a while then that kills to birds with one stone.

Firstly it should bring us in players who can be considered to go straight into our first team and secondly it gives the player an opportunity to play first team mens football and gives them the chance to develop as a player.

The thing is it doesn't always work out and your not that bothered they go back to their clubs but then again when a loan player has been an integral part of your team and they then go back to their parent club that leaves a massive hole in the team which is sometimes impossible to fill, as we have experienced this season.

It's all part of the balancing act revolving around the whole squad that the manager and recruitment team need to get right.
If you look at the League table after 46 games it will generally tell how the team as a hole have performed although within that you will have players, whether they be loan or not, who have performed much better than others and there are also many factors that can be the cause of that.

 

[NottyImp]

So who are the next group of superstars MA can develop for the Premiership to make a mint off?

It should be called The Fiorini Dilemma.

I've mentioned it before and put it like this, elsewhere:

Fiorini starting to look the part. He does form part of my questions about "The Model", though.

What percentage is there in it for us to take a raw - but undoubtedly talented - player on loan and spend almost a whole season developing him to be L1 proficient?

As I see it, that only benefits the parent club. What we get is a player that for, say, 30 games is sub-par overall and then is pretty good for the remainder of the season. What they get at the end of the season is a polished player they can sell to someone else.

I'm being hyper-critical here, for sure. But I wonder why we don't spend that time and effort on our own players.

 

[SIMJON]

It should be called The Fiorini Dilemma.

I've mentioned it before and put it like this, elsewhere:

Fiorini starting to look the part. He does form part of my questions about "The Model", though.

What percentage is there in it for us to take a raw - but undoubtedly talented - player on loan and spend almost a whole season developing him to be L1 proficient?

As I see it, that only benefits the parent club. What we get is a player that for, say, 30 games is sub-par overall and then is pretty good for the remainder of the season. What they get at the end of the season is a polished player they can sell to someone else.

I'm being hyper-critical here, for sure. But I wonder why we don't spend that time and effort on our own players.

Yep I agree. One does wonder if Sorensen/Sanders would have benefitted from that game time to improve them...that would have benefited us much more in terms of having saleable assets.

 

[Red Wimp]

It should be called The Fiorini Dilemma.

I've mentioned it before and put it like this, elsewhere:

Fiorini starting to look the part. He does form part of my questions about "The Model", though.

What percentage is there in it for us to take a raw - but undoubtedly talented - player on loan and spend almost a whole season developing him to be L1 proficient?

As I see it, that only benefits the parent club. What we get is a player that for, say, 30 games is sub-par overall and then is pretty good for the remainder of the season. What they get at the end of the season is a polished player they can sell to someone else.

I'm being hyper-critical here, for sure. But I wonder why we don't spend that time and effort on our own players.

Well I would say firstly economics, if we do the right deals costs us less, secondly raw talent our own young players are with the greatest respect not up to the standard of a Fiorini or Norton-Cuffy, thirdly less risk (e.g. N’Lundulu we could ditch half way through the season), lastly whilst we hopefully are improving the players I don’t really see any who aren’t at the same time improving our own performances if I’m honest.

 

[Red Wimp]

Yep I agree. One does wonder if Sorensen/Sanders would have benefitted from that game time to improve them...that would have benefited us much more in terms of having saleable assets.

I would argue Sorensen has had plenty of game time but hasn’t shown the necessary, Sanders maybe a different story but there’s obviously something else going on there.

 

[NottyImp]

Well I would say firstly economics, if we do the right deals costs us less, secondly raw talent our own young players are with the greatest respect not up to the standard of a Fiorini or Norton-Cuffy, thirdly less risk (e.g. N’Lundulu we could ditch half way through the season), lastly whilst we hopefully are improving the players I don’t really see any who aren’t at the same time improving our own performances if I’m honest.

I do think it's a lottery in that respect. For every Johnson/Norton-Cuffey who can immediately contribute and hit the ground running, there will be other loans that can't and don't.

But "The Model" requires us to develop and sell players. Fielding 4/5 loans in the first XI regularly is 4/5 of our own players we're not developing for us to sell.

It's probably about getting the balance right, which I think hasn't been the case overall this season (but then, injuries!)

 

[Red Wimp]

I do think it's a lottery in that respect. For every Johnson/Norton-Cuffey who can immediately contribute and hit the ground running, there will be other loans that can't and don't.

But "The Model" requires us to develop and sell players. Fielding 4/5 loans in the first XI regularly is 4/5 of our own players we're not developing for us to sell.

It's probably about getting the balance right, which I think hasn't been the case overall this season (but then, injuries!)

I get the impression that wasn’t the plan but circumstances have changed. If I recall we started the season with only 2 loan regulars, Griffiths & Fiorini (N’Lundulu I think was only ever back up for Hopper). Because of injuries and our own players not performing I would say we’ve increased that since January.

 

[WellingtonImp]

The other thing to consider is, if our own talent is worth anything, they will benefit from having technically better players around them in training. It’s not all down to MA and the coaching staff. Having better loan players in, even if they’re raw, will influence our own talent to raise their game.

 

[monkeyg]

I think last season is obviously the exemplar case for the benefits of loan players isn't it. Without those players I don't think there was any way we'd have got as close to the Championship as we did. You can argue this season shows the negatives and we should be building teams with our own players but I think that's very challenging - even amongst 'permanent' players the turnover is too high to slowly build a team that hits those sorts of levels. So I think the challenge is to combine the two isn't it, build a solid base where you can but look for the right sort of loans who can really add that extra we wouldn't be able to sign permanently.

 

[Sincilbanks]

I do think it's a lottery in that respect. For every Johnson/Norton-Cuffey who can immediately contribute and hit the ground running, there will be other loans that can't and don't.

But "The Model" requires us to develop and sell players. Fielding 4/5 loans in the first XI regularly is 4/5 of our own players we're not developing for us to sell.

It's probably about getting the balance right, which I think hasn't been the case overall this season (but then, injuries!)

I don't think we are every going to have enough young players coming through to fill out a team, loanees are presumably to give us some quality in areas where we don't have that talent coming through...

 

[JAYIMP]

I think last season is obviously the exemplar case for the benefits of loan players isn't it. Without those players I don't think there was any way we'd have got as close to the Championship as we did. You can argue this season shows the negatives and we should be building teams with our own players but I think that's very challenging - even amongst 'permanent' players the turnover is too high to slowly build a team that hits those sorts of levels. So I think the challenge is to combine the two isn't it, build a solid base where you can but look for the right sort of loans who can really add that extra we wouldn't be able to sign permanently.

,,So I think the challenge is to combine the two isn't it"

Exactly this.
Can't argue with how important loan players were to our results, especially last season. I just wish we could develop more of our own players to either build a team around them or sell them and gain funds to increase our chances to land even better players .
I mean that is what ,,our model" meant to be all about. That is also why we appointed certain type of manager in Michael. In fact though in his 2,5 seasons so far how many players did Mapp sign himself and sold with profit? One in Edun I think.
Grant and Toffs were DC's signings. As for the players with some resale value we might still look into Scully and Monstma I guess, maybe even Robson.
So looks like balance needs to swing a little bit in this direction (getting our own talent developed). Hopefully that is what we will get with signings players like Long, Kendall, House etc.

 

[Red Wimp]

,,So I think the challenge is to combine the two isn't it"

Exactly this.
Can't argue with how important loan players were to our results, especially last season. I just wish we could develop more of our own players to either build a team around them or sell them and gain funds to increase our chances to land even better players .
I mean that is what ,,our model" meant to be all about. That is also why we appointed certain type of manager in Michael. In fact though in his 2,5 seasons so far how many players did Mapp sign himself and sold with profit? One in Edun I think.
Grant and Toffs were DC's signings. As for the players with some resale value we might still look into Scully and Monstma I guess, maybe even Robson.
So looks like balance needs to swing a little bit in this direction (getting our own talent developed). Hopefully that is what we will get with signings players like Long, Kendall, House etc.

But Grant wasn’t really a saleable asset when MA was appointed which is the point I think.
As for some of the others, well you can’t polish a turd.