The loan rangers
One thing that Stuart Pearce has preached since taking over the job is the value of young players going out on loan in order to gain experience which will stand them in good stead once they return to the club.
This transfer window has seen a number of youngsters at the club go out on loan and currently there is Kaspar Schmeichel, Joe Hart, Matt Mills, Kelvin Etuhu, Marc Laird and Nathan D'Laryea all farmed out to lower league sides to continue their footballing education.
Clearly some players are talented enough to bypass the need to go out on loan and make the jump straight to the first team, but another benefit of younger players going out on loan is the barometer of whether or not they will ultimately make the grade at City and often their time out on loan will confirm that perhaps they will not make the grade.
I think the only drawback for us at the moment is that the squad is so light, we do not really have the option of loaning players out for the season due to the possibility of them being needed at the club so a lot of the loans we are involved in at the moment are for the period of a month.
In the modern game though it seems that there is less emphasis on reserve team football, and as a result it does not provide the required intensity for a young player to bridge the gap between youth team football and the big stage and with the talented crop of youngsters that are coming through, the option of loaning players out over a sustained period of time is becoming even more important.
2 comments:
And your point was??
OK - I know that this is a fairly new thing for City's future stars, but players like d'Laryea going away for a month (to be extended at the other team's discretion) is obviously a make or break experience for him. If they try to extend - he's doing OK, if they don't (unless the other team have crippling debt, and can't afford the loan fee any more), then it's hard decision time. Our lads in general are doing OK (although Hart had a hard time at Tranmere behind a questionable defense). Bury pleaded for Caspar to be extended - and he's tearing up tree roots at Falkirk.
I think it's good to see the emphasis placed on the Academy and their development by Pearce - perhaps out of necessity but encouraging nonetheless, and it is certainly something that hasn't been done a great deal before.
Think back to Keegan where a number of younger players left the club. Maybe none of them would have ultimately made it, but how many were pehaps cast aside too early when they could have had an opportunity to go out and prove themselves?
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