Youth recruitment policy- yay or nay?

[Lidl_Reed]

In a lot of the discussions surrounding Arteta and Edu's failures, I think a lot of us are ignoring the fact that we now have a new recruitment policy. Granted, it's only been one window, but the profiles of all the players signed are similar. Early 20's, potential players but mostly without a lot of hype. Let's be honest, no Arsenal fan was calling to sign for young talent Tavares or young talent Tomiyasu or Ramsdale or Lokonga or any of these players.

I'm curious as to what people think of this policy.

Personally, I'm not a fan. I know clubs need to build for the future but we also need to look at the present. None of the players signed improve the team in the present, except maybe Ødegaard but you could argue we had him on loan last season so it's not an improvement, per se. Tomiyasi is not better than Bellerin, White isn't an improvement on Luiz, Lokonga is an improvement on Elneny (But who wouldn't be), Tavares is nowhere near Tierney. And aside from that, you need experienced good players to help improve youth players. All youth teams don't work.

My second issue is that they're not some supremely talented and hyped players. None of them (Barring Ødegaard) have ever had any hype associated to their game. No one has ever hyped up Tomiyasu as the next big RB (Random Arsenal fans may now tweet otherwise but its not true). No one calls Ramsdale the next top goalkeeper. Tavares is a complete unknown. Lokonga had some hype but not a huge amount. White isn't some huge hyped talent

I personally think these are going to be mostly average to above average players that will be better in a few years, but will never be world class. These aren't the sort of top young players that take a club forward, they're decent players with potential to be good, if you get what I mean. None of them are outstandingly talented in any way. And while you could argue top young talents won't move to Arsenal, I think starting time at a club our size is a huge motivation. And if anyone thinks that hype doesn't matter, the talented players almost always have hype. There may be hidden gems like Kante and Mahrez but they are few and far in between, and aren't usually found on the bench of a Portuguese team or playing with no hype in one of the top leagues.

Your thoughts on our new policy? Again, on the policy and profile of the players themselves and not specifically the transfer window since that's a separate thing.

 

[Flying Okapis]

I'm not defending the club as they have done a lot wrong but its kind of a 'damned if they do, damned if they dont situation'.

All the hyped youngsters across the globe are not joining Arsenal, they are joining Bayern, Madrid, City etc so our shopping tier is below that.

The club got moaned at for the scatter gun approach of previous years where signings were all over the place and seemed to lack a long term goal.

Now the club has identified a strategy going forward and you get people bishing about that as well and want instant success.

The way I see it is since Wenger left the 'rebuild/s' have all been half assed with no commitment. Now it seems like the club is actually entering a rebuild phase however due to the ****e thats been brought in since Wenger has left and also whilst he was here has left us in a position where all our 'experienced' players aren't good enough and we cant shift them which prevents us bringing in better players to compliment the young ins.

I dont rate Arteta, never have done but I imagine if he had a magic wand he would dump over 50% of the squad just like we would.

Where we are now is where we should have started post Wenger, took a few years to rebuild instead of ****ing about which put us further down the league and in a worst position to start.

 

[tcahill]

In a lot of the discussions surrounding Arteta and Edu's failures, I think a lot of us are ignoring the fact that we now have a new recruitment policy. Granted, it's only been one window, but the profiles of all the players signed are similar. Early 20's, potential players but mostly without a lot of hype. Let's be honest, no Arsenal fan was calling to sign for young talent Tavares or young talent Tomiyasu or Ramsdale or Lokonga or any of these players.

I'm curious as to what people think of this policy.

Personally, I'm not a fan. I know clubs need to build for the future but we also need to look at the present. None of the players signed improve the team in the present, except maybe Ødegaard but you could argue we had him on loan last season so it's not an improvement, per se. Tomiyasi is not better than Bellerin, White isn't an improvement on Luiz, Lokonga is an improvement on Elneny (But who wouldn't be), Tavares is nowhere near Tierney. And aside from that, you need experienced good players to help improve youth players. All youth teams don't work.

My second issue is that they're not some supremely talented and hyped players. None of them (Barring Ødegaard) have ever had any hype associated to their game. No one has ever hyped up Tomiyasu as the next big RB (Random Arsenal fans may now tweet otherwise but its not true). No one calls Ramsdale the next top goalkeeper. Tavares is a complete unknown. Lokonga had some hype but not a huge amount. White isn't some huge hyped talent

I personally think these are going to be mostly average to above average players that will be better in a few years, but will never be world class. These aren't the sort of top young players that take a club forward, they're decent players with potential to be good, if you get what I mean. None of them are outstandingly talented in any way. And while you could argue top young talents won't move to Arsenal, I think starting time at a club our size is a huge motivation. And if anyone thinks that hype doesn't matter, the talented players almost always have hype. There may be hidden gems like Kante and Mahrez but they are few and far in between, and aren't usually found on the bench of a Portuguese team or playing with no hype in one of the top leagues.

Your thoughts on our new policy? Again, on the policy and profile of the players themselves and not specifically the transfer window since that's a separate thing.

Completely disagree.

We're nowhere near challenging for the title or even top 4. Especially under Arteta. Building a long term project is our best chance at getting back on that level.

Signing young players has the following upsides:

-they are hungry, want to improve and aren't just here to get a contract to retirement.
-they can be moved on later even if they struggle.
-Can become key players for many years if they succeed.
-They have smaller wages. Ben White for example is on 80k, that's just around a third of what Varane is on.


Your player valuations are also well off the mark.

-Tomiyasu has been one of the best Serie A right backs for two seasons.

-White has been known as a good defender with a very high ceiling for a couple of years.

-Ramsdale has won player of the season three times in a row, twice with PL clubs.

-Tavares is a backup, he's not here to bench Tierney.

 

[tcahill]

I'm not defending the club as they have done a lot wrong but its kind of a 'damned if they do, damned if they dont situation'.

All the hyped youngsters across the globe are not joining Arsenal, they are joining Bayern, Madrid, City etc so our shopping tier is below that.

The club got moaned at for the scatter gun approach of previous years where signings were all over the place and seemed to lack a long term goal.

Now the club has identified a strategy going forward and you get people bishing about that as well and want instant success.

The way I see it is since Wenger left the 'rebuild/s' have all been half assed with no commitment. Now it seems like the club is actually entering a rebuild phase however due to the ****e thats been brought in since Wenger has left and also whilst he was here has left us in a position where all our 'experienced' players aren't good enough and we cant shift them which prevents us bringing in better players to compliment the young ins.

I dont rate Arteta, never have done but I imagine if he had a magic wand he would dump over 50% of the squad just like we would.

Where we are now is where we should have started post Wenger, took a few years to rebuild instead of ****ing about which put us further down the league and in a worst position to start.

Great post. We've lacked a coherent transfer policy for years. We finally look like we have one.

I'm so done with ageing 'veterans' that come, play badly or don't fit the system, get benched by a young fella, then because of their age and wages we can't move them on.

 

[MauveGunner]

Yay, but you also need experience the back up the youngsters. Going all in in the PL is ****.

Supertalents like Cesc and Saka would thrive in any team. But others who have the talent like Balogun or Sambi would thrive better when the bounce of experienced players. A good balance between both is ideal.

 

[Lidl_Reed]

-Tomiyasu has been one of the best Serie A right backs for two seasons.

-White has been known as a good defender with a very high ceiling for a couple of years.

-Ramsdale has won player of the season three times in a row, twice with PL clubs.

-Tavares is a backup, he's not here to bench Tierney.

On Tomiyasu, he has not. I don't know where this has come from. He didn't even play RB most of last season so your assertion he's been one of the best RB's is ridiculous. I've seen him play on multiple occassions. I live in Bologna. Here's a list of best serie A RB's in Italian for you.

I migliori laterali in Serie A nel 2020 secondo Wallabies

Migliori terzini Serie A 2020 – Sono l’interista Achraf Hakimi e il milanista Theo Hernandez i migliori laterali – rispettivamente destro e sinistro – della Serie A nell’anno solare 2020. I…

www.calcioefinanza.it

Top 3 are Hakimi, Cuadrado and Hateboer. No idea how you got this assertion he's that good, but he isn't.


Again, he's not near it.

Ben White is not highly rated as a top talent. I'd like you to show me any place that rated his as a top 4 club rightback talent. Ramsdale won player of the year at a **** club. I think you'll find goalkeepers win player of the year at **** clubs most of the time

Tavares isn't even good enough to be backup

 

[Haphazard]

The priority for Arsenal was to get back into Europe and address our attacking concerns.

It's one thing if we bought these players for 50m but we spent over 150m on them, we have no guarantee how any of them will turn out and we are banking the club's future on them.

You invest in a youth project when you have players in their prime , so that when that prime is over the other players can step up and you won't have to spend transfer fees on a quality player.

Our strategy should have been to invest in more ready players Auoar/Maddisson/Martinez all vastly improve the first team. At the same time if the manager actually had any man management skills the likes of Saliba would still be here and we could have gotten Onana for cheap as well.

This was a unique opportunity, this coming season we had 1 game a week so the chances of injuries and fatigue are much lower, and we had over 150m to spend.

Of that 150m we have spent close to 100m on the defence , 50m on someone with limited aerial ability and 30m on a gk of unknown quality.

The whole point of investing in youth is that in case there is a chance the signing does not work out the club loses a small amount because the player was bought cheaply. So low potential downside and high potential upside. We on the other hand have bought players of unknown quality on high prices.

I think this is the worst transfer window for the club simply because so much can go wrong and can set us back years.

 

[Lidl_Reed]

To add on Ramsdale, he is one of the most expensive goalkeeper signings of all time. That's a huge amount of money for someone who at best will be an above average goalkeeper.

 

[9jagooner]

Football fans tend to forget too quickly.
Have we not learnt from Wenger years? When Wenger decided to go youth direction, what happened? The moment they made little name for themselves, they jumped ship. Cesc, Nasri, Song, Clichy. In many cases, disrupting the development of the team.

I am all for promoting youth but this MUST be done with core members of the team being experienced and high quality. For example, I believe that we should have bought a high quality midfielder/forward this season that will guarantee that we at least fight for top 4!
Do you guys think Sambi will stay if he goes on to have an excellent two seasons with us and ManCity or PSG come calling in two seasons?

 

[9jagooner]

Youth is good but must be matched with ambition. Players don't have patience for long term projects

 

[RacingPhoton]

I like the idea of youth project. My problem is with the people who are running the project.

If we are betting on youth and building a long term project, there are two important requirements:
1) Identifying the right talent - We have a poor track record in this area. The management can't even make the right call between Leno and Martinez in our own squad. How can we trust them to find the right players from outside the club?
2) Developing the young players we recruit - We have a manager who would rather give minutes to Elneny than to Lokonga or AMN. Adding the examples of how he handled Guendouzi and Saliba, how can we trust him to develop the current crop?

Yes, I like the youth project and that' probably the best option in the current climate. But I don't like the people running that project. It just looks like an excuse for them to hold on to their jobs long term in spite of poor performances.

 

[Riou]

We are always gonna probably have our best players poached, regardless of their age.

Since the stadium move when we dropped a level as a club, pretty much all our best players have left, not just the young ones...Cole to Chelsea, Henry to Barca, Van Persie and Sanchez to United...all in their mid to late 20s when they left.

We will never truly be competing at the top to keep our best players for very long, unless they have a lack of ambition like Sp**s' ones...top players will go where they will win major trophies, that's not us anymore and probably won't be us again for a quite a while.

Since that's the team we are now, I would rather see exciting young talents get game time for a few years, then leave us...over 5 plus years of "experience" like Xhaka and Mustafi in the team, ffs.

A youth project has a better chance of making us successful (at least what Arsenal in 2021 would define as successful) as you can likely get profits on these players, allowing more money in the budget to improve the team...as opposed to the last few years, where we literally have to pay some of these old ****s to leave the club.

Happy for a young core of the team, with a few experienced heads around them...would prefer that, than the other way around, tbh.

 

[berric]

Sign young hungry players?
- Willian, Cedric, Mary

Promote top prospects, academy and HG players internally?
Saliba, Guendo, Martinez, Willock

Find a coach with a proven man management and style of play and a track record of favoring exciting youth over medicore experience?
Arteta

A DoF with a reputation in the game of being a talent spotter, controlling football operations, and getting value of our assets? Also not being a corrupt arse.
Edu

A convincing executive knowing how to strike a commercial deal with reputable brands and able to make tough decisions?
Vinai

Hands-on owner that's commited to success of the club, able to tie all the above together?
KSE

Yeah I don't see how this project can fail.

 

[Sanchez11]

You need a mix tbh but not over the hill 30+ mercs. Problem is we have been burned by SENIOR players!!

 

[SA Gunner]

There are two projects on the go at Arsenal Football Club. The first is the one we are talking about here, the investment in youth to build for the future.

The second is the experience building project of Arteta, Edu and Vinai.

The key is whether the first project can be completed successfully with the concurrent second project underway. I struggle to find an example where a group of juniors successfully pulled of a massive, extremely difficult, medium to long term project successfully, perhaps someone has an example.

The idea of investing in youth is brilliant, so is the idea of building a football identity at the club based on the best ideas in the game (the touted juego de posicion in that twitter thread and other sources for example). So to answer the question of this thread, its a yay from me.

But the key point is this to me. You cannot implement such a project, or any of such size and difficulty for that matter without real experience.

 

[Flying Okapis]

GK: Ramsdale
LWB: Tierney
CB: Saliba
CB: Gabriel
CB: White
RWB: Tomiyasu
CM: Guen/AMN
CM: ESR/Ødegaard
LW: Martinelli
CF: Balogun
RW: Saka

That is a very good crop of youngsters for the future of the club, ignore the formation etc as just an example but that is a base which can be sprinkled with experience as well and push forward.

Partey, Pepe and probably Auba would be the 3 I'd keep out of our 'experienced' players and that is unfortunately the situation we are in; 2/3 senior players to guide the youngsters, I would literally bin all of the rest of the seniors if it was that easy.

More disappointed in Edu's inability to ship out the crap as well as bringing his own in since hes been here.

Its kind of like this club works backwards, instead of building a solid senior squad and then buy youngsters we have got the youngsters in place but no real senior players which is a dangerous game.

Wont even go in to Arteta being the right man for the job or not.

 

[Macho]

Project youth didn’t really work with a renowned legendary manager. Doing it with this set up is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen the club do. Next window we will just bemoan the lack of experience and goal posts will be moved again.

Arteta needs to be carried he’s not the type of guy to win games and develop at the same time.

Our most senior players Auba, Laca, Xhaka, Pepe lack the quality necessary to carry lesser players, they need to worry about themselves. The others I haven’t mentioned are either fodder or just not worth mentioning.

Not having it myself, but enjoy.

 

[Rimaal]

Youthful squad and an immature novice manager who doesn't know how to develop players, or get the best out of them, is a recipe for disaster, imo.

 

[ChefMan21]

Fully behind it. I look at what someone like ten Hag did and has done at Ajax, and I'm all for it. De Jong, de Ligt, van de Beek, Onana, Ziyech and more, he built a side that plays great football and eviscerates some of the top sides in Europe. Youth projects can work.

If you don't like a youth project take ten Hag off your managerial wishlist.

 

[Trilly]

Look, we’ve been signing youngish players for a while now. Pepe, Saliba, Gabriel, Martinelli, Douzi, Tierney, Runnarson, Torreira and others I can’t remember all signed before this summer. We tried to supplement these players with some experience such as Partey and Willian.

That’s what a club who are trying to go for the top four should do mostly young with some experience, even in the medium term. You need some senior players to keep us attractive so we can continue to sign good young players. If we line up with a team of average age 22-23 we’ll get battered and it might create an environment that doesn’t actually help our young players develop.

Project youth isn’t a brand new thing. This summer could easily be a typical Arsenal window; the only exception is we didn’t sign a Partey this year. I think Edu/Arteta/Vinai are just shamelessly reducing their accountability.