Worldwide scouting...surprising outcome.

[Toffeelover]

Cahill, Lescott, Pienaar, Baines ?, Oviedo, Coleman.
Arteta had been a success in Scotland but really hadn't done much besides, we picked him up for about 2m and sold him several years later for 10m that must be considered great business, Lescott even moreso.

Add to that the purchase of Fellaini and selling him back to our EX at a huge profit!

 

[Titus Bramble]

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.

Highlighted bit is speculation. The other club in for Stones when Moyes signed him was Wigan, managed by Martinez.

 

[Jamo Martinez]

Are you suggesting that Moyes didn't find enough players in that 18-22 bracket that are just out of their own youth system but not yet established players? That's a pretty narrow bracket, like. It's easy to see it now, but there was no guarantee Cahill or Arteta would be successful in the Premier League. We only ever see the hits. Likewise, most young players fail to make significant breakthroughs, and that applies to every team in the world. We have a big academy and youth system but most of them won't make the grade, it's just the way it is and Moyes did a decent job identifying talent as, I feel, Roberto is doing now.

Totally agree. Same with Pienaar. Really was a bright promise at Ajax but, from what I could make out, flattered to deceive at Dortmund when they bought him as Rosicky's replacement.

 

[toffeemax]

Éder Álvarez Balanta
we should sign him.

 

[Eggs]

....when we got RM I remember Chris Kirkland (that his name? the Wigan goalie) saying he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the global football market and I was surprised that so many of his initial signings were from 20 miles up the East Lancs Rd.

McCarthy and Besic are clearly good buys, but still expecting a mystery S American nugget who turns out to be a real diamond (not Denis coming back).

 

[marty mcfly]

All these players are known throughout Europe. The agents make sure they are so they can get the best moves. Case in point, Martinez went for Stones too but we got them due to us over Wigan.

The question should be. Is Martinez and his advisors a good judge of a player. Besic, Rom, McCarthy, even Stones and Barkley all indicate he probably is. The other signings are squad fillers that you take because a) available and b) their cost.

 

[Garrick]

South Americans will always have work permit issues if they're young as they wont have played enough internationals to satisfy the UK work permit.

Africans I can live without, some great players but we're not in a position where we can have a major player disappear for 2 months in the New Year every couple of years.

What's the deal with this? Is it really that much harder for a non-European to get into the UK than it is to, say, Netherlands or Belgium to play footie?

There are a few recent Yank prospects that were England bound and then ended up elsewhere in Europe due to permit issues with the UK. I'd imagine there are way more South Americans that run into this.

 

[Carlito]

I thought there'd be a few tidy, if unspectacular, Jordi Gomez types coming in on the cheap.

 

[emb]

What's the deal with this? Is it really that much harder for a non-European to get into the UK than it is to, say, Netherlands or Belgium to play footie?

There are a few recent Yank prospects that were England bound and then ended up elsewhere in Europe due to permit issues with the UK. I'd imagine there are way more South Americans that run into this.

EU players don't need work permits, at all. There's (more or less) free movement of labour within the EU.

 

[Garrick]

EU players don't need work permits, at all. There's (more or less) free movement of labour within the EU.

That I knew, but is it really that hard for non-EU'ers to get a work permit for sport?

Apparently so, but you'd think they'd make the path pretty easy for such "specialized labor"

 

[Huyton Layne]

What's the deal with this? Is it really that much harder for a non-European to get into the UK than it is to, say, Netherlands or Belgium to play footie?

There are a few recent Yank prospects that were England bound and then ended up elsewhere in Europe due to permit issues with the UK. I'd imagine there are way more South Americans that run into this.

Belgium and Holland both are more relaxed with regards to footballers getting permits.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ules-limit-foreign-influx-Premier-League.html
Stuff like mentioned in this story about Chelsea having a Chilean in Holland because he can't qualify to play in England. Think we did it with a Brazilian at one point

 

[Nymzee]

Are you suggesting that Moyes didn't find enough players in that 18-22 bracket that are just out of their own youth system but not yet established players? That's a pretty narrow bracket, like. It's easy to see it now, but there was no guarantee Cahill or Arteta would be successful in the Premier League. We only ever see the hits. Likewise, most young players fail to make significant breakthroughs, and that applies to every team in the world. We have a big academy and youth system but most of them won't make the grade, it's just the way it is and Moyes did a decent job identifying talent as, I feel, Roberto is doing now.

The opening post is specifically talking about scouting youngsters so I was just pointing out the players you mentioned don't fall into that category so using them to defend Moyes' transfer dealings is irrelevant.