Reply With QuoteFinished 0-0. They also play Slovakia on Friday and Turkey on Sunday.Originally Posted by City123
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Ronan Kpakio captaining Wales u18s away to Czechia, Jac Thomas & Jake Davies also playing
Finished 0-0. They also play Slovakia on Friday and Turkey on Sunday.
U17s beat Gibraltar 5-0, a couple of City players involved
Also playing were George Feeney (son of Warren) and Prince Cisse (son of Djibril)!
Czech Republic U18s 0 Wales 0. Att : 321.
— Ralph Davies �������������� ���� ���� ���� (@RalphDavies1) September 4, 2024
Standout player for me was captain Ronan Kpakio. Excellent from start to finish. pic.twitter.com/QYlxyZkPxH
Getting Warren Feeney and Djibril Cisse in the same sentence might be an internet first, well done.
The under-19s have a couple of games coming up too. Dakarai Mafico, Cody Twose and Trey George are in the squad, Luey Giles has moved up to the under-21s, Dylan Lawlor has pulled out with injury.
Not sure where Josh Beecher is but with Giles, Tom Davies and Jac Thomas already with age group squads this week we're well represented at left back.
Prince Cisse qualifies because his mum is Welsh. She also has 2 other boys with Cisse and has since got married to Ngolo Kante.
She's taking recruitment to another level.
I wonder if Erling Haaland fancies her?
I like him, good technique as we saw with his assist v Rovers and he generally takes free kicks, only just turned 18 too so plenty of time to grow, I think most clubs would probably be looking at integrating him into the squad considering our lack of left back options but it doesn't like that will happen anytime soon
King's a good player, decent on the ball and brave in that he actually wants to receive it consistently, unlike some others, he also offers size and athleticism that we don't really have in our midfield. I wasn't surprised about him going out on loan purely because I think the manager basically wants an 11 of players that he's signed himself
We're going to have one hell of a midfield then
Mainly because of his loans, I haven't seen a lot of King. I've seen plenty of positive things said about him but I'd be guessing to say where he's at. Maybe it was a consequence of his injury at the end of last season but he's had a slow start to this one. He didn't seem to feature much in pre-season and was, I felt, a bit disappointing against Rovers. He's only had 12 minutes for Stevenage so far too. Even if he ends up having a stand-out season there then people will still say 'it's only League 1' so it won't be conclusive.
It hardly seemed worth replying to your post just to say that but it'll be interesting and informative to see what Bellamy makes of our youngsters. He's already had Giles and Ashford training with the senior squad and he knows King because he had him playing for the under-18s here when he was only 15 so must've rated him then. It'll be a yardstick to use when assessing some of our players, if they impress and make visible progress within the Wales set-up while stalling here then it'll surely be a sign that the club/manager is failing them.
What i liked most about king was his urgency, and i'm a sucker for players who show up, take responsibility, even when things aren't working out the way they want them to. From the little i saw of King, he looked that type of player. I've always been of the opinion that attitude and commitment can over ride a players deficiencies and can produce a very valuable player, Time well tell i suppose, but he obviously needs to play. Luey Giles looked really composed, great touch, didn't panic in possession, he sort of slowed things down to suit his game. I was encouraged.
Noah Williams was the only City player in the starting line up for Wales under 17s 5-0 win over Qatar today, none of our players starting for the under 18s in their game that kicks off at 5.
https://dragonsoccer.co.uk/newsite/u17.php?id=974
Siopis is urgent, to be fair. Whenever I've seen King he's been neat and tidy but I've wanted a bit more from him. After a couple of decent loans last season I was hoping to see him take charge and dominate the midfield but his normally sound technique let him down a bit and he even gave Rinomhota a run for his money for bad touches and missed passes. Not that the pair of them got overrun or anything, we were unusually solid that night and they gave good protection to a young back four but I felt it was an opportunity missed for King. I'm not going to generalise from that though, hopefully his time will come here.
Here's his assist for Hugill from the Derby game a couple of years ago, good bit of play this. It comes at around 1.05 in these highlights.
https://www.google.com/search?q=derb...XRCzDNZF8,st:0
The under-18s beat Slovakia 3-2. All three of our lads came on in the second half.
Fair enough, that was the first time i'm really taken a look at King. When i say urgency, i meant in a switched on kind of way, always wanting to get involved as opposed to the busy siopis. Yeah, King did make some mistakes, but maybe they were brought on by an over willingness to impress. I just liked his attitude. If i was a betting man though, i wouldn't put money on him getting much of an opportunity under Bulut.
As can be seen by the link, the result of the Qatar game has been changed to a 2-1 loss for Wales.
Tuerto, you're right about King. He should be playing ahead of Siopis. Siopis is OK, but we are never going to be a good team with players like him in the starting line up. King may be, at the moment, no better than him but he has the potential to become a top player and worth a lot of money. He could become our Declan Rice.
The counter argument is that he is better off doing his development elsewhere but that is valid only if his progress with us is being blocked by good players and we are playing well. Siopis, for one, is no better than Stevenage standard and we have been dire for approaching 12 months.
I'm certain that the fluke against Southampton saved Bulut's job. But we should have been 5 down at half time and it took a big deflected goal from a subsequently discarded teenager to win the match.
Whatever the rhetoric, we all know we are going nowhere until there is a change. And players like King, Ashford, Giles etc are of little interest to the current coach. At least the transfer committee has spent money wisely
Kpakio, Thomas and Davies started for Wales in today’s under18 game with Turkey, Jake Davies scored to reduce the deficit to 2-1 and it looks like they missed a chance to complete their recovery when they failed with a late penalty.
Kpakio's been getting some good reviews from people watching the games. Wonder if we may consider loaning him out in January to get him some senior football? Unless he's down as the backup here of course...
We were safe relatively early last season, that was the time to blood our youngsters (I say youngsters, aren’t some of the ones we go on about in the early 20s? Which really isn’t that young in football terms). They could have got senior football with their own club with little pressure. Also Bulut would have got a massive ‘Get out of jail free’ card, perhaps even being praised for giving our lads a go. In fact when a couple were involved they were a breath of fresh air.
Missed opportunity as ever
It was, it was the ideal situation for any newish manager with a club, safe from relegation but fans getting restless with your style. Yet you’ve got nigh on half a season to win the crowd over with the introduction of the club’s own youngsters, something that most fans love, a team of their own. It would have been sink or swim with little repercussions should the plan fail.
Hey, to be fair to Bulut the youngsters might have done something really embarrassing like ship 5 at Rotherham or lose 4-1 at home to Boro
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