An aging squad, youth players and HG

I read somewhere that we have the oldest squad (by average age) in the PL. A couple of years olde than Chelsea's.

That's got me thinking. We will soon need to start replacing players as they start to go downhill. Maybe not for a couple of years, but soon enough. I reckon that by the time we do, we should have a transfer kitty upwards of £50M a year. Maybe that could stretch to £100M. The way transfer prices are going for top talent, that might just buy us two players.

At some point soon, we are going to need our kids to come through as the HG rules are pinching us already. We've no space in our squad for the likes of ISCO unless a foreigner leaves. We'll need one or two kids to come through every year as our squad ages.

And why I said tomorrow night would be the perfect opportunity to blood some alongside some of the others already on loan.

We can't keep thinking that season in, season out, we need the stronger teams for these type of competitions, otherwise, we'll never be able to give them the chance to show what they can do and potentially unearth a gem.

EDS is one thing, but it's a million miles from the first team and the experience/confidence that will give them.

For me, the C1C is a Cup we 'could' say..."this is a chance to play 4 or 5 of them in and if we go out, we go out.

I agree, a mix of youth and benchwarmers

I think it's madness that we've gone from one of the youngest squads to one of the oldest.  It seems like almost every player we've bought recently has been over 28 years old and that speaks volumes of the "Holistic" approach we're employing.  Oh, no, wait, it's the polar opposite, isn't it?

I don't believe in the "holistic" approach anyway, as it's diametrically opposed to "5 trophies in 5 years".  And the latter rakes in more money.

Agree...I don't like this 'holistic' approach being banded about, if so, we'd have seen at least 4, maybe 5 EDS players in the first team squad....so far, the only players to make it up to that level and in Cup matches, are Lopes and Huws.

I think Suarez was good enough but he went to Barca ;(

He could have gone to Scunthorpe, he didn't stay with us or play a proper game....so that holistic approach clearly isn't something Marwood is interested in, clearly.

He and Joan Roman were 2 players that looked a class above the others...but both were let go...and for what reason? I don't see us having any agreement or first choice on the likes of Fabregas, Tello or Pedro.

Well, quite.  Suarez is good enough for Barca, so by that rationale, he's good enough for us.

Holistic, my arse.  If I was Mancini right now, I'd be fuming at losing my job over something that turned out to be totally irrelevant.