January 2022 Transfer Thread

[TANGODANCER]

And the staff with the Under-18s, the likes of Dave Gardner and Julian Darby, what's the working dynamic like between yourself and your staff?
?

Hasn't Julian Darby got a very serious illness (motor neurosis syndrome) that ended his career? His wife, Stephanie Houghton is captain of the England Women team?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

And the staff with the Under-18s, the likes of Dave Gardner and Julian Darby, what's the working dynamic like between yourself and your staff?

Hasn't that lad got a very serious illness that ended his career. He's the husband of Stephahie Houghton, the England women catain) ?

That's Stephen Darby, TD. Julian Darby is of an earlier vintage.

IIRC it was Phil Brown on a podcast a while ago who said that these kids released from academies could have been paid £10k a week for years or even more and have never played a game or mens football and released at 20 or 21. In his experience in many cases they don’t want to go to league one or two for a fraction of their salary and drift away from football entirely if someone higher up the ladder doesn’t take them. His point being that it’s not the same as 30 years ago. Many young players don’t ‘love the game’ in the same way and will play if they can get the money at the top level but don’t have the same desire to grow from the bottom up. Not all. But a lot.

I’m not sure it’s an easy exercise plundering academy release lists. Many still live at home and don’t need money. Not initially. And probably don’t see league one as their destination.

Not sure Browny's the most reliable witness. I'm sure there are some who drift away from football, which is their right, but good luck to them getting a better-paid job. Rule of thumb, a League Two squadder is on £50k per year, twice the national average salary. As someone with two early twentysomething kids I can assure you that their cohort aren't exactly being peppered with offers of salaries at twice the national average.

There is and always has been a treacherously narrow funnelling of players between the ages of 16 and 23, but I don't think there's much evidence that "a lot" of young people "don't need money". Indeed, that sounds both reductive and reactionary. Kids these days...

[GhostoftheBok]

Signing up the best kids from the local area would certainly be an excellent start. I know when I was growing up in Bolton we were fecking shite at this.

Dunno how old you are, Gun, but there was a conscious choice made by the club at one stage to cut out local recruitment and shift our recruitment model to bringing in "the best of European youth." The idea being that we couldn't compete with Utd, Liverpool etc for top prospects in the North West but we could entice lads from Poland.

It went badly. The board decided we'd been conned and everyone was grumpy about it.

[TANGODANCER]

And the staff with the Under-18s, the likes of Dave Gardner and Julian Darby, what's the working dynamic like between yourself and your staff?

Hasn't that lad got a very serious illness that ended his career. He's the husband of Stephahie Houghton, the England women catain) ?

That's Stephen Darby, TD. Julian Darby is of an earlier vintage.

Ah Yes, my error D.S.B Thanks for the correction.

[The_Gun]

Signing up the best kids from the local area would certainly be an excellent start. I know when I was growing up in Bolton we were fecking shite at this.

Dunno how old you are, Gun, but there was a conscious choice made by the club at one stage to cut out local recruitment and shift our recruitment model to bringing in "the best of European youth." The idea being that we couldn't compete with Utd, Liverpool etc for top prospects in the North West but we could entice lads from Poland.

It went badly. The board decided we'd been conned and everyone was grumpy about it.

Yeah I was at school in the 90s and early 2000's, so if this was going on around that time it would tally with my experience.

It clearly is difficult competing for talent in the North West, but we are also talking about a highly populated area - I think Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside and Cheshire have a combined population of pushing 7 million.

I'd also argue that we shouldn't be trying to directly compete with the likes of City, United and Liverpool. City, for instance, have one of the best academies, and some of the best facilities in the world. Their first team is also arguably the best in the world, and to break into it a young player has to be one of the most talented for his age group, not just in the North West, not even just in the UK, but in the entire world. I know parents will overrate their offspring, but most would understand that their kid is going to have an absolutely miniscule chance of making it at Man City. If your kid is an elite level talent then fine, send them to one of those big academies.

A club in our position needs to show a clear pathway for young players to make it into the first team at an early age, otherwise we have very little competitive edge over the neighbouring behemoths. At the moment I accept we are coming out of a period of turmoil where we lost some of our top talent, and perhaps we don't have players of sufficient quality in the academy at present, but you would certainly hope that is actively being addressed if so.

[GhostoftheBok]

A club in our position needs to show a clear pathway for young players to make it into the first team at an early age, otherwise we have very little competitive edge over the neighbouring behemoths. At the moment I accept we are coming out of a period of turmoil where we lost some of our top talent, and perhaps we don't have players of sufficient quality in the academy at present, but you would certainly hope that is actively being addressed if so.

Well, Blackburn haven't been making excuses for catchment area, they've just been working on player development and they've done okay.

At the end of the day we had years of coaching failures and never addressed them due to personal relationships getting in the way. Nobody wants to sack their mate.

Properly turning around an academy isn't a quick job. It's a decade of sustained work. You can start to see the benefits after a couple of seasons, but it won't really hit home until the the youngest groups start to age into senior football - and that's after you've sorted out your networks.

Selling that kind of long-termism to an investment vehicle may be tricky and I don't know what our current plan is, but we should be getting talented, young coaches in who can develop along with the academy. Sam Hird may have been a good choice.

With fairly average Championship players now costing around £5m (and young prospects from Leagues One and Two going for £1m or more) you need to have an academy pushing at least some Championship-level squad players through if your intention is to be a selling club in that league.

[BWFC_Insane]

And the staff with the Under-18s, the likes of Dave Gardner and Julian Darby, what's the working dynamic like between yourself and your staff?

Hasn't that lad got a very serious illness that ended his career. He's the husband of Stephahie Houghton, the England women catain) ?

That's Stephen Darby, TD. Julian Darby is of an earlier vintage.

IIRC it was Phil Brown on a podcast a while ago who said that these kids released from academies could have been paid £10k a week for years or even more and have never played a game or mens football and released at 20 or 21. In his experience in many cases they don’t want to go to league one or two for a fraction of their salary and drift away from football entirely if someone higher up the ladder doesn’t take them. His point being that it’s not the same as 30 years ago. Many young players don’t ‘love the game’ in the same way and will play if they can get the money at the top level but don’t have the same desire to grow from the bottom up. Not all. But a lot.

I’m not sure it’s an easy exercise plundering academy release lists. Many still live at home and don’t need money. Not initially. And probably don’t see league one as their destination.

Not sure Browny's the most reliable witness. I'm sure there are some who drift away from football, which is their right, but good luck to them getting a better-paid job. Rule of thumb, a League Two squadder is on £50k per year, twice the national average salary. As someone with two early twentysomething kids I can assure you that their cohort aren't exactly being peppered with offers of salaries at twice the national average.

There is and always has been a treacherously narrow funnelling of players between the ages of 16 and 23, but I don't think there's much evidence that "a lot" of young people "don't need money". Indeed, that sounds both reductive and reactionary. Kids these days...

Brown has managed lower league clubs so presumably has some experience. I think the point is not that they don’t need a paying career. But that at 21 with a considerable bank account they aren’t immediately desperate for paid employment. Unlike maybe 20 years ago…and now have the ability to assess their options.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Iles suggests Darcy might go out on loan again:

"It is understood Wanderers would like to send him out to a top National League or League Two side for more experience later this month."

Evatt:

Things are up in the air with it at the moment. We’ve got transfer targets, we’ve got people we want to bring in and then we’ll make a call on who we loan out to further their development and who stays around. It’s very much still up in the air whilst there’s still negotiations for players coming into the club.

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/1 ... nan-darcy/

[GhostoftheBok]

Iles suggests Darcy might go out on loan again:

"It is understood Wanderers would like to send him out to a top National League or League Two side for more experience later this month."

Evatt:

Things are up in the air with it at the moment. We’ve got transfer targets, we’ve got people we want to bring in and then we’ll make a call on who we loan out to further their development and who stays around. It’s very much still up in the air whilst there’s still negotiations for players coming into the club.

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/1 ... nan-darcy/

Yay, transfer stuff. I've decided to leave off other topics as I can't be arsed right now and my brain is clearly not working well enough.

Darcy isn't the answer to our current issues and he would benefit from regular playing time.

I could be wrong, but that's how it strikes me.

[The_Gun]

The fact that Evatt doesn't see Darcy as an option to stand in for Sheehan for the rest of the season probably spells curtains for his Bolton career, in my opinion.

[GhostoftheBok]

The fact that Evatt doesn't see Darcy as an option to stand in for Sheehan for the rest of the season probably spells curtains for his Bolton career, in my opinion.

Needs to do something, certainly. Hard to see him as in Evatt's plans. Were he bigger and more athletic he'd likely be deemed "good enough", but with his build you have to be a bit special.

Evatt has specifically said that he's looking for more pace, power, energy etc. He's right to be after those traits.

[BWFC_Insane]

The fact that Evatt doesn't see Darcy as an option to stand in for Sheehan for the rest of the season probably spells curtains for his Bolton career, in my opinion.

Needs to do something, certainly. Hard to see him as in Evatt's plans. Were he bigger and more athletic he'd likely be deemed "good enough", but with his build you have to be a bit special.

Evatt has specifically said that he's looking for more pace, power, energy etc. He's right to be after those traits.

For me from what I’ve seen potentially Darcy is a better player than Sheehan. Potentially. And I’d be disappointed if he’s not given a chance especially considering how many chances the woeful Thomason has had.

[GhostoftheBok]

For me from what I’ve seen potentially Darcy is a better player than Sheehan. Potentially. And I’d be disappointed if he’s not given a chance especially considering how many chances the woeful Thomason has had.

Yeah, I know you don't rate Sheehan. I saw the post where you noted our goal scoring issues and listed the loss of Sarcevic's goal threat as important, but didn't mention Sheehan's injury - odd given that Sarce had 3 in 13 starts and Josh had 4 in 12.

I like Darcy, but I don't think any manager in the League would take 21 year old Darcy over 21 year old Sheehan. Certainly not Sheehan before his injury to Darcy now. It's not close.

I do think Darcy could be a League player in the right system and it's possible he could in Evattball, but he needs to play regularly for about 18 months.

Players divide opinion. That's fine. But, no.

[GhostoftheBok]

Reports we have made an official approach for Hartigan.

I emphasise "reports", I've seen nothing official.

[nicholaldo]

For me from what I’ve seen potentially Darcy is a better player than Sheehan. Potentially. And I’d be disappointed if he’s not given a chance especially considering how many chances the woeful Thomason has had.

Yeah, I know you don't rate Sheehan. I saw the post where you noted our goal scoring issues and listed the loss of Sarcevic's goal threat as important, but didn't mention Sheehan's injury - odd given that Sarce had 3 in 13 starts and Josh had 4 in 12.

I like Darcy, but I don't think any manager in the League would take 21 year old Darcy over 21 year old Sheehan. Certainly not Sheehan before his injury to Darcy now. It's not close.

I do think Darcy could be a League player in the right system and it's possible he could in Evattball, but he needs to play regularly for about 18 months.

Players divide opinion. That's fine. But, no.

Is it not close?

I don't understand how your knowledge of a younger Josh Sheehan could be good enough to confidently make that claim.

For what it's worth - and, of course, it only a matter of opinion - just before the season before last got curtailed, I thought Darcy had really begun to demonstrate he could contribute at third tier level. He clearly had areas in need of significant development but he was always willing to make himself available, looked to play with urgency, had good positional sense and a good range of passing. Even now, I don't think any member of our squad has a better first touch or close control.

He likely won't make it with us and his deficiences might mean he never makes it as a professional but to suggest there's a yawning chasm between him and Sheehan at similar ages is, I think, probably wide of the mark.

[nicholaldo]

On the subject of our Academy, is it still a Category 3?

[GhostoftheBok]

Is it not close?

I don't understand how your knowledge of a younger Josh Sheehan could be good enough to confidently make that claim.

For what it's worth - and, of course, it only a matter of opinion - just before the season before last got curtailed, I thought Darcy had really begun to demonstrate he could contribute at third tier level. He clearly had areas in need of significant development but he was always willing to make himself available, looked to play with urgency, had good positional sense and a good range of passing. Even now, I don't think any member of our squad has a better first touch or close control.

He likely won't make it with us and his deficiences might mean he never makes it as a professional but to suggest there's a yawning chasm between him and Sheehan at similar ages is, I think, probably wide of the mark.

No, it's not close. Before Sheehan's knee injury Swansea (then a Premier League side) had him down as a future first teamer and he was constantly in touch with the national team set up. He injured his knee on loan at Newport, where he scored 7 in 25 from midfield before doing his ACL. Contract talks with Swansea were ended and he was later released.

For the record, I like Darcy. I would like to have seen him get game time in League Two. I'd also not mind him staying as I think we need the depth. I do think Evatt needs to get more advanced lads in ahead of him, though.

[Worthy4England]

If I drop Sheehan's pengy, they're about the same, so far (Sarce/Sheehan). I could argue that his direct free kick was also a dead ball situ, but that's part of what we want him to do...certain types of open games seem to suit his chance of scoring. Bar the penalty, the other three times he's scored have been in two 3-3 draws and a 5-2 win...least we can say we've never lost when he's scored in the League!

[GhostoftheBok]

If I drop Sheehan's pengy, they're about the same, so far (Sarce/Sheehan). I could argue that his direct free kick was also a dead ball situ, but that's part of what we want him to do...certain types of open games seem to suit his chance of scoring. Bar the penalty, the other three times he's scored have been in two 3-3 draws and a 5-2 win...least we can say we've never lost when he's scored in the League!

As I said when we signed him, Sheehan isn't some perfect player to solve all your ills. He needs structures around him. Steven Gerrard he is not.

It doesn't really matter now as we won't see him again this season, so we need to assess what we do have and what we need.

Hartigan would improve us, so here's hoping we really are getting somewhere with that (or some other midfielder...any other midfielder). Still leaves us needing a goal threat from that department, though. Answers on a postcard there.

[irie Cee Bee]

Not seeing how Darcy improves us in midfield. From what I have seen when he plays, he is energetic but very lightweight which is the big problem we have right now. We need stronger players and as much as we love Rohan, he is not the solution. No problem with him going out on loan again. We need stronger replacements for Sarc and Sheehan or else we will be playing L2 next season.