Quote Originally Posted by Loramski View Post
I've no idea how these things work but whose radar would lads like Kpakio and Giles be on at this stage of their careers, just out of our Academy with 26 minutes of league action between them? If Fagan-Walcott is only in the National League and Tom Davies is apparently unable to find anything, who'd pick the two of them up? I'm sure if a decent offer came in then the club would consider letting one or both of them go out but it seems a bit harsh to criticise the club for not sorting loan deals for them while also being critical of a League 1 deal for King.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree about King, I'm not really sure what your point is. He's still got a couple of years left on his contract, are you saying that if Bulut doesn't think he's a better option than Siopis then we should pay his contract up or just let him twiddle his thumbs here until it runs out? Presumably Stevenage are paying most of his wages so it's not costing us much, King's got the chance to play regular football at a good level and Stevenage are strengthening their squad. Seems like everyone's a winner to me.

We sent Ajayi out at that age to League 1 and he went on to become a Premier League player, we sent McGuinness out at that age too then sold him for millions soon after. Even Ebou Adams made us some decent money and got him a good move after playing there. Mark Harris seems to have benefitted from a season at that level at 25. It's hardly a graveyard.
I believe that there is an optimum time for any player on his first or second professional contract when it comes to possible selection for the first team, there is a time when he is most ready for inclusion in the first team. Of course, many of those players will never be good enough for first team selection on merit, but they'll all have a short time when they are as ready for it as they'll ever be. In most cases, we're talking about someone who is around the ages of 19 to 22 I'd say, but there will be those who will never be closer to the stsndard required when they're 17 and there may be some (very few though) who aren't ready until they're 25.

It's my contention that City have been absolute crap at recognising and acting on that optimum age for what's getting prertty close to twenty years now and my point with Eli King in particular is that if he's going to get into the habit of turning in very influential performances for a team that currently sits just nine places below us in the football pyramid, then have we again failed to recognise that optimum time for a youngish player? It was ironic that we played Derby on Saturday because if you go bac k nearly two and a half years, King laid the only goal of the game there on a plate for Jordan Hugill and yet I would argue that, given the use made of him in pre season and that King seemed more in Erol Bulut's thoughts as a popssible first teamer in August 2023 than he did in August 2024, here is another player City are in danger of turning into another Theo Wharton or Tommy O'Sullivan. Ross County may not be a better team than Stevenage, but they get to play against teams that definitely are better than his current side in the SPL and, after watching the part King played in beating Rangers at the back end of last season, did he really need another season out on loan this time around?

Ironically, despite him clearly having a problem with selecting younger players in his average afe 29 first team, Erol Bulut is far from the worst manager City have had in the last decade or so when it comes to youth development. The team which played what been far and away City's best attacking football this season was maybe the youngest the club have put out in the twenty first century, but making an impression in a cup games is clearly not enough to get you into consideration for a league start unless it's the end of April or ealry May and the game has nothing riding on it.

Your last pargraph makes the case for loaning out some of the players who Bulut considers a part of his potential starting eleven (I'd say one of our keepers, Goutas, Meite, and, given our manager's attitude towards him, Robinson could fall into that category) could and should have followed Wintle out on loan in August. It would also make sense if, as I suspect it is, the loaning out of the likes of Fagan-Walcott, Conte, King and Simic has as much to do with trying to balance the books as it does player deverlopment.