Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
You talk of an "incredibly complex problem" and, yet when applied in a Cardiff City context at least, explain it away with a simplistic "the players aren't good enough".
Again, we see blanket statements about no one wanting to take our players on loan when I would suggest there was at least the possibility that there may be reasons for this which have little to do with how good or bad our young players are. Say a small to middling League Two club, Cheltenham for example, were looking to recruit a youngster from a Championship club on loan for a season with a view to them being a regular starter in their first team. In the end, they narrow the field down to two players of very similar ability with club A prepared to let their player go to Cheltenham without a loan fee and with a very modest contribution needed to be paid by the League Two club. On the other hand, club B demand a loan fee and insist that the majority of the player's wages for the period of the loan are paid by Cheltenham. It seems pretty obvious to me which club Cheltenham would do business with - what if City are often "club B" in such cases, might that explain the lack of loans for our young players, rather than them just not being good enough?
I'm on the fence somewhat about whether it was a good thing for someone like Sion Spence to be kept out the Under 23 team for virtually the whole of the season just ended. For the first four or five months of the campaign, I would have said definitely not, but, by the spring, I was thinking he, and plenty of others, were probably better off out of it - I suppose the time to make a judgement on this season's Under 18 team and how they were kept apart from the Under 23s will be in a few years time.
However, what I'm absolutely certain of is that, the way the Development team operated was no good whatsoever to those young pros who were too old to play for the Under 18s.
If it is true that Rhys Abbruzzese has been released, then I think he would be justified in feeling bitter about how the last year of his contract was handled by the club. Abbruzzese may or may not have been good enough to have "made it" at Cardiff (his performances for Wales Under 21s suggested he had a chance), but he deserved better in such a defining season in his career, than being left out, or played out of position, in Under 23 matches whilst players, nearly always not as good as him, were given trials in his best position. I'm sure he'll be another who is dismissed as "not being good enough", but I think he could reasonably argue that, at a very important stage of his development, he was given too few chances to prove himself and, when he did get one, it was in an environment which was hardly conducive to pushing for a first team place.
Finally, regarding Gringo's comment about "smaller, less athletic kids", I'm not sure about the second bit, but what I would say is that, historically, the Welsh Rugby side was known for playing in a way which sought to avoid turning a match into an arm wrestle as they sought to get their backs into spaces where they could use their skills to exploit the spaces out wide. This policy was often explained away by the comment that, as a rule, Welsh players were not big enough to take on other teams up front and win, so, despite this approach having been virtually abandoned by the Welsh team in recent years, I would say Gringo has a point about our players generally being smaller - certainly, during thirteen seasons I think it is now of watching City Under 18 Academy teams play now, I have been struck by how often the average height of our opponents have been obviously taller than than ours.
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