Quote Originally Posted by Rjk View Post
To me it would make sense to see where we are come January. If we have a realistic shout of the playoffs, and Bagan and/or Martin aren't showing enough consistency yet at left back then by all means bring Cunningham or Bennett back in.

If we are looking consigned to mid-table obscurity, then that would seem to be the ideal time to bring the youngsters through. They are both out of contract in the summer, and probably on large wages for us, both having been with us in the premier league.
If we could get one of them up to first team level and the other a capable understudy then that would be ideal as it's be a huge chunk off the wage bill, and one less position to have to address in the summer.
The thing about the Championship is that there is rarely a season with many 'dead' games. We've got a bit of time on our side with Bagan, he's just turned 19 so there's no rush to decide whether he's going to stay at left back or go back to centre-half, no big worry if he has a bad patch or picks up an injury. We should be able to bring him through at a pace that suits both him and the club.

Martin presents a different issue. 21 but still hasn't played above the 6th tier so we can't be sure where we are with him. His third season here so presumably the club see some potential but, as we found with Ajayi, it can be tricky to establish how good players are, and how long you wait to find out, when they're still waiting for any kind of breakthrough at that age and good players are standing in their way here.

Martin is an eye catching player, runs up and down his touchline all game but so did Declan John, David Tutonda and Cameron Coxe, among others, before him. Morison and Harris will have a good idea of his level but would surely want more proof of it before they throw him straight into a Championship game. They could be an injury to Bagan away from being forced to though.