The future ........ | Vital Football

The future ........

Agree with that Moonay, but I'm somewhat sceptical about how we will integrate some of the promising youngsters into the first team. Flores and Chow were ultimately poor and before them...was Baines the last successful one?
 
Made in Wigan said:
Agree with that Moonay, but I'm somewhat sceptical about how we will integrate some of the promising youngsters into the first team. Flores and Chow were ultimately poor and before them...was Baines the last successful one?
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I seem to remember one of them putting in a MOTM performance in the greatest win of our entire history but I could have been mistaken!
 
With Macca leaving, this opens up the spot for our youth players to step up, Evans will probably be the obvious bet so we have 6 capable outfield players on the bench, or use Lang. Whoever it is they will likely get less time than Macca has got this season, so are we better off loaning out Joseph, Gelhardt and Weir to get first team football, at least until January and develop properly and have Lang and Owens as our home grown players?
 
Gregor Rioch became the academy manager about 5 or 6 years ago and due to the nature of his job bringing kids through from 9 to 21 it was always going to be something where the real impacts of any improvements he made could take years to really show up. In prior years all the lads getting near the first team potential age were probably kids already in the system prior to his arrival but the lads growing into first team potential ages now will likely all have been brought in and nurtured through by him and his coaching set up start to finish.

This crop of youngsters seems the most promising we've ever had, i don't recall ever having this many youth internationals, having lads that big prem clubs are interested in and the youth teams dominating at their level this much before. So it does look like Rioch and his team are doing a good job and we've got a much greater chance of reaping some rewards at last.

It's a big step up from youth team to first team Championship / League 1 football - and flenty of top prospects with plenty of hype fail to make the leap, but i've never been as realistically excited about a set of youngsters as our current lot making the step up.
 
king_dezeeuw06 said:
Gregor Rioch became the academy manager about 5 or 6 years ago and due to the nature of his job bringing kids through from 9 to 21 it was always going to be something where the real impacts of any improvements he made could take years to really show up. In prior years all the lads getting near the first team potential age were probably kids already in the system prior to his arrival but the lads growing into first team potential ages now will likely all have been brought in and nurtured through by him and his coaching set up start to finish.

This crop of youngsters seems the most promising we've ever had, i don't recall ever having this many youth internationals, having lads that big prem clubs are interested in and the youth teams dominating at their level this much before. So it does look like Rioch and his team are doing a good job and we've got a much greater chance of reaping some rewards at last.

It's a big step up from youth team to first team Championship / League 1 football - and flenty of top prospects with plenty of hype fail to make the leap, but i've never been as realistically excited about a set of youngsters as our current lot making the step up.
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But if they are never given a chance you never know. If we are ok with playing shite Everton kids we may as well try our own, save some dosh and encourage other kids to sign on with us as they can see a path to first team ops at Wigan
 
Hampton said:
But if they are never given a chance you never know. If we are ok with playing shite Everton kids we may as well try our own, save some dosh and encourage other kids to sign on with us as they can see a path to first team ops at Wigan
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To be fair though Geldheart, Weir and most of the other kids excelling are all 16 - 17 and playing other kids their age from Category 2 academies - the gap between the level they are at and playing men in the Championship is monumental and if you throw them in now you could set back their development and ruin their confidence. Also with us being in a horrible relegation battle where senior pros are often floundering it's throwing them in right at the deep end. They need probably need some lower league loans like Lang is benefitting from to find their feet and adapt to the increased physucality and intenisty of playing senior pros.

You are right about us needing a clear path to the first team and we all want our to get a chance but if we threw them in now chances are they simply wouldn't be ready and in a sink or swim situation they would probably sink where if we waited for them to be ready they could swim. We would be probably hurting them and our first team results if we rush them in.
 
You're right KDZ. This lad is presumably well behind Lang with regard to 1st XI readiness.

My point in raising the thread was more to do with the creation of a sausage machine for these youngsters.

Reading the reports from the Dev squad and U18 games, he will hopefully have a few mates following him soon.
 
king_dezeeuw06 said:
To be fair though Geldheart, Weir and most of the other kids excelling are all 16 - 17 and playing other kids their age from Category 2 academies - the gap between the level they are at and playing men in the Championship is monumental and if you throw them in now you could set back their development and ruin their confidence. .
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I have no idea how you have time to go to work or socialise you know more about latics than anyone, not being sarcastic
 
You need to be careful when developing kids but also you need to test them , some will thrive some will bottle it , there is no perfect answer just trial and error .
If you keep them in there comfort zone that will hinder there development as well
 
For anyone who didn't go or watch back the fans forum Cook did mention that the youth team does train with the first team a couple of times a week, every time we are working on the team shape or doing anything tactically we have the youth team acting as the opposition so the integration between the youth and first team is going on behind the scenes.
 
RaggedTrouseredPhil said:
We have an 18 year old in the senior side who managed to oust last season's POTY and will probably be this season's POTY. To nick a quote. "If they're good enough, they're old enough."
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To be fair though he is play U23 Premier League Academy category A football against the best kids on the fringe of Prem action from United, City, Arsneal, etc - the step up in minor compared to our kids aren't facing anything like that level of competition playing L1 and L2 cat C kids from Rochdale and Blackpool.

Our issue is our catergory C status makes it very hard to get them ready for the first team due to the huge difference in quality.
 
Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum (but still a part of our short term future at least), Gary Roberts has signed another year long contract extension.

Good lad.
 
Hopefully we can get safe with one or two games to spare, if so then Cook has no excuse to not give a couple of them gametime.

As for Lang he has a big pre season ahead of him. If he doesn’t impress and show enough to at least get on the bench come the start of the season, then it’s time to sell while his value is high. He’s not a baby anymore and I suspect he’ll attract serious interest from FL clubs.
 
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