2014 Squad

Quote: carl_spackler "I'm confused. I thought you were saying that recruitment should be done with an eye on the juniors coming through to avoid having players' route(s) to the first team blocked by signing players in positions we may already have covered? If you think this has happened to Shaul it's down to the current set up, if you don't then there isn't a problem. Either way, for all of the faults of the previous board I don't see how we can attribute this and/or any future similar cases to them as well. It is/will be down to those now in charge, or simply the unfortunate mess of the new U19s system (mainly the latter IMO). It's only really right to blame the old board for a lack of players coming through or any being blocked by players signed under them, IMO.'"

I was saying that there has been a lack of any sort of recruitment strategy for years or at least if there was one it's not been applied properly resulting in us signing players just because they're available without any thought to the future. BUT even with the best strategy it will not be possible to find a place for everyone because of the uncertainty of whether a player will develop the way you think , the sometimes randomness of when players "break through" and because there is always a pressing need to put out a competitive team. In Shaul's case it appears that he wasn't thought to be ready when we signed McDonnell , whether that was right or wrong is difficult to know especially as we've seen him play only one SL game to date. The important thing is to make sure that your system produces numerous youngsters that can become SL standard so that when this sort of thing happens we accept it on the basis that we can't accommodate every player all of the time. It's a balancing act but one that I think the current regime are paying attention to. Of course the U19's system to say the least doesn't help.