Youth got to be kidding?

There’s some quality in our young players like Nelson, Saka, Nketiah, ESR... they ought to be given a chance to come into the first team this coming season.

 

If we lack a budget to buy top quality, I want youth in our team. They can talk all they want about putting in the work and getting better for next season.. you can dress up a pig but at the end of the day it's still a pig.

No more Elneny, Mustafi and crap like that. Sell them all and get some youth players in.

 

It's a bad environment to blood young players at the moment: our senior players are setting a terrible example! Do you trust Sokratis or Koscielny to guide a young centre back or Xhaka a young CM? Can you imagine the pressure on Nketiah if Laca and Auba are injured as there aren't goals throughout the team?

I like the look of a lot of our youngsters, but not sure if next year is the time to blood them in. I think Nelson, Smith-Rowe and Nketiah should be on the bench a lot more.

 

I'm fed up already of a quiet transfer window. Let's get youngsters in non-spine position.

I would have given Osei-Tutu an opportunity, but he appears to be going out on loan. Let's get our young forwards involved. Reiss Nelson plus one of ESR or Martinelli/Claude-Maurice

 

Really wouldn't have expected that in 2019 Germany. Hope the kid is alright.

 

This is great news! I think Willock and Nketiah are ready to contribute more next season while Nelson and Smith-Rowe are that big talents that I believe they will win Emery heart very early!

For me Iwobi and AMN still have all to prove and they are getting a little bit at the end of the rope here with us. They got to show they are at very least very solid players this season and we can count on them to do the minimum job in most of the games they play. If not I'm afraid they will have difficulties to survive next summer window! But I think if we sell them next window that is at least 20-25 M we can bank on them!

While I don't hope we sell them, selling them could see the wheel start turning. We get youngsters in, if they can't cut it for 2-3 season we sell them and get the next batch in! It can become a decent source of income! But I surely hope we see most make it here with us!

The squad is a tad big, but hopefully we are expeting some departures like at very least Elneny!

 

There are bigger fishes in our squad than Elneny who are blocking youth players. Elneny is a non factor at this club, but players like Mkhi and Özil are getting too many minutes with very little results in return. I think the two of them will be/should be under pressure from an upcoming talent that we have in attacking midfield positions. This could be a healthy competition that we were lacking for several years where some players were picked just because they were good 6 years ago.

 

I wasn't necessary thinking in terms of blocking youth. Just think 27 is too big for the squad. Would love to get rid of Miki, Jenkinson, Özil and Mustafi too.

 

I'm just not convinced Emery is willing to place too much faith on the youth players. When you are supposedly only given a 2year grace period before you get the sack from the fans, why would you take such bets?

I believe thus far only AMN has been promoted on a permanent basis, and I don't think he was entirely convinced.

 

Completely agree. Emery hasn't got time to be thinking long-term for the club. Sure he'd rather buy a Perisic then develop a Nelson. He needs results now.

 

We should get rid of him then IMO.

 

We are supposed to be the Arsenal, not Crewe Alexandra. I too want to see more youth but as part of a competitive squad.

If we play a youth-heavy team we'll get slaughtered regularly which means that our best young players will leave as soon as they can. Youth won't save us, only Kronke's departure will.

 

Doesn't have to be an all-U21 team, but we should definitely be playing the likes of Nelson ahead of Mhkitaryan and Willock filling in the midfield instead of someone like Elneny or overplaying Guendouzi. AMN should be in the convo for midfield aswell.

I believe it's very important to the club to have a progression plan in place for Hale End graduates, especially at this point where I feel it will be successful. We just need to have trust and faith in them, as they have the talent. Part of the reason we even supposedly brought Emery in was that he'd be brave enough to play the youngsters more, so far only Guendouzi got any actual shine. AMN was by force (Bellerin getting hurt) and he didn't exactly shine the way he should because they insisted on playing him out of position.

I'd much rather give Emery the benefit of the doubt but if @Wryer is right and Emery doesn't want to do the above, especially given our supposed lack of firepower in the transfer market, and is quite happy to continue playing underperformers because of "experience" then IMO he isn't the right man for the job.

Ideally, would be signing players aswell, but failing that, we should be more open to playing them anyway.

 

Exactly, mix talented youths with new signings in position where we dont have talent coming through, motivate the good seniors Auba+Laca+Torreira+Sok+Leno (even Özil might then be bothered play) with an at least decent manager we should only improve.

 

We can definitely play more of nelson, saka and martinelli maybe some esr.
Nketiah and willock are not ready for first team football yet and need a loan.
Smith and Cottrell can play in some cup match.
AMN and Iwobi lack the football intelligence, vision, passing and positioning to be a central players. Their dribbling and pace will be better used out wide.

 

Well unfortunately it's not a case where a change in manager will effect a change in philosophy. Any manager that comes in will feel incentivized to go for a "proven" option. Let's just take the Lichsteiner situation last season. The intention was clear - but could a youngster had been a better option? Both in terms of results, and most importantly, for the long term good of the club?

The answer is very few managers would take that option given the circumstances. And I see that happening even more often over the next 3 years.

 

I agree with much of this but no feeder club is ever successful in the long run - look at Ajax who are streets ahead of us in bringing up young players.

Playing youth players because they are good enough is one thing, playing them because you cannot afford decent signings is another. I don't want a false emphasis of youth to cover the criminal negligence from the disgraceful owners which cheats the manager from spending even the profits made from the fans.

 

I believe our young players are good enough though, they just aren't trusted because they are young and lack experience. I believe they'll surprise people greatly and exceed expectation.

 

I think you'll find some of them are good enough in terms of promise but don't make it and others do make it. You have to give them chances but not too many at the same time, certainly not against top or physical teams.

In then old days of the Carling Cup our young teams would put on some great performances and embarrass a lot of teams but eventually would come unstuck against higher level or physically stronger teams. Good as they may be if we played our youth team from this season in the premier league they wouldn't make the top half.