Worldwide scouting...surprising outcome.

[blueblue]

I was more than pleasantly surprised with the performance of RM as manager last season and am surprised and unpleasantly surprised about the performances of manager and team this season.

But, you have to take the good with the bad and RM certainly deserves our support in his attempt to turn our fortunes around. This difficult period will make him into a better manager in the long term as we must accept that young managers have a learning curve as do young players.

What has surprised and disappointed me however is the failure of our scouting system(RM'S scouting system) to unearth any young players in the same way David Moyes did during his tenure.
The one exception is Besic and I cannot help but feel that he only came on the radar during the World Cup in spite of what RM said at the time.

Lukaku was already an established premiership striker, James McCarthy already an established midfielder(although discovered by RM at Wigan)
Stones was brought to the club by Moyes as was Oviedo and a host of other young players over the last decade, many from the lower divisions in England.

I genuinely expected to see some young players from South America, Spain and Africa come to the club
without first having played for Wigan. That to me is the biggest disappointment.
I also believe that there are other players in the lower divisions who can make the same strides as John Stones.
When Stones was signed it was seen as a "worth a punt" type of signing rather than the coup that it has since become.

 

[Ashtonian]

to be fair its been a year, last summer he signed cheap stop gaps for the squad and we commited a lot of money on signing luakaku.

id at least not be too disappointed that we arent seeing south americans in the team yeat

 

[Pienaar's gloves]

Moyes turned out a few in ten years.

Bobby had had eighteen months.

 

[The Cowboy]

Moyes was hardly prolific with his unearthing gems though, was he? Some hits, lots of misses.

 

[toffeejack]

how can you unearth a youth team gem within 18 months?

 

[Nymzee]

I wouldn't say Moyes was good at scouting at all - I mean aside from Stones who's actually progressed into a first team player than he's brought in young?

We don't know who Roberto is or isn't scouting - remember just because we scout them doesn't mean others aren't, maybe he's found loads but they've just chosen elsewhere. Be interesting to see what happens in the summer if he goes for anyone like Joe Gomez or Will Hughes etc. from the lower divisions.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

In terms of youngsters though, we've taken punts on the likes of Galloway and Henen, with slightly bigger punts on Stanek and Byrne.

 

[AlE]

how can you unearth a youth team gem within 18 months?

Ever heard of Football Manager? Duhhh

 

[wandyr79]

Martinez said that he was in for Stones but he chose to come to us, I think we can attribute a bit of his scouting to that one.

If Martinez is still with us in a few years time I think we would maybe start to see a few come through but by then we will hopefully be going for higher calibre known players.

 

[caught]

I'm absolutely furious he hasn't signed any Peruvian 14 year-olds, personally.

 

[TheBlueGibbon]

We'd struggle to get any South American or African players anyway, they wouldn't qualify for a work permit.

 

[AlE]

In terms of youngsters though, we've taken punts on the likes of Galloway and Henen, with slightly bigger punts on Stanek and Byrne.

What's happening with Henen btw? Are we planning to buy him or what? I never really understood loaning him for the season...

 

[GwladysStreetHero]

He brought deulofeu on loan does that count as a spanish youngest?

 

[Tubey]

He got Deulofeu on loan who made an impact, Besic who has made an impact, brought in a young 'keeper too and has put much, much more faith in Barkley than Moyes ever would have done, as well as introducing the likes of Browning and Garbutt to the first team fold.

I'm not sure what you want him to do - buy young players simply because they're young? There's got to be a tactical need for them. If an established winger is available at the right price, then I'd expect Martinez to go for them ahead of the unfinished article, as the pressing need for them is current.

 

[Nymzee]

What's happening with Henen btw? Are we planning to buy him or what? I never really understood loaning him for the season...

It's messy but I think the intention is to buy him at the end of the loan, yeh. It all came about due to how much Anderlecht wanted at the time so we've struck a deal with Olympiakos where we both win. Pretty sure it's something like that from what I read.