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A mixed bag for our loaned out players yesterday.
An impressive and dominant display from Eli King for Stevenage as they beat Barnsley 3-0. It had been a slow start to the season for him but he's going through the gears now. Good in midweek for Wales under-21s and another strong 90 minutes yesterday as he broke down play, got tackles in and kept the ball moving in possession. Apparently, the majority of his passes were forward ones which seems slightly unorthodox but each to their own.
King's teammate in Iceland on Tuesday, Joel Colwill, didn't recover as quickly as he was subbed after an hour of Cheltenham's game at Salford. He'd had a good game and Cheltenham were leading 1-0 but tiredness caught up with him and Salford went on to win 2-1. Hopefully there's someone in his family he can talk to about stamina issues.
A couple of switches to defence didn't work out yesterday. Keiron Evans started at right wing back for Newport but didn't even finish the half there as he was soon pushed further forward as Newport went 3-0 down to Swindon early on. It finished 4-0 but Keiron lasted the 90 minutes which was around half an hour longer than Raheem Conte lasted as Woking lost 3-1 at home to Oldham. Not sure why Raheem was playing at the back but it obviously didn't come off.
Another strong performance from Malachi Fagan-Walcott helped York to a 3-0 win over Fylde in front a crowd of over 5,000. They now top the National League. No such luck for Roko Simic and Luke Pearce as they came on as subs in heavy defeats for Kortrijk and Sligo. No pitch time for Ryan Wintle at Millwall and no sign of Josh Beecher at Barry yet. Ewan Griffiths helped take Plymouth Parkway one step nearer to Wembley with a 4-3 win over Westbury United in the second qualifying round of the FA Cup.
Nice to hear about King, he's got something, don't quite know what, but he's switched on. I wont go over the top, i can't anyway as i havent seen enough of him. I'm hoping he's a late developer, one of those players who melts into team rather than takes it by storm, a bit like joe ralls did.Originally Posted by Loramski
Except, in a testimony to what we’ve become, Ralls was four years younger than King is when he was playing in League Cup Semi Finals.
That's why i said Late developer
That's not a bad comparison. TOBW is right that Ralls played in the first leg of the League Cup semi at 18 in January 2012 but Malky hardly used him after that. He played a season and a half of under-21 football then went on loan to the Championship with Yeovil the season we were in the Prem. Solskjaer rated him, brought him back into the first team for the 2014/15 season and he ended up making over 30 appearances.
While Ralls has always been ahead of King in terms of his development here, he had the advantage of being able to play on the left side of midfield, and even left back, as well as central midfield which gave him more of an opportunity to melt into the team, as you put it. I'd love King to break in here but his chances this season would've been limited and the pressure to make a big impression might have got to him (as I felt it did against Bristol Rovers).
Both King and Fagan-Walcott have talked positively about the season ahead and, while you wouldn't expect any different, it's easy to believe that they feel they've dodged a bullet (Bulut?) by getting out of here for now and can look forward to playing regular football and developing their game in a positive environment.
Ralls was a regular in our League Cup run of 11/12 and played in the early rounds as a 17 year old, he made his league debut as a 17 year old, he was filling in as a left back in a promotion winning team just after his 19th birthday. The major reason he dropped out of first team contention for a while around the age of 20 was that we were in the Premier League - Ralls was playing in a far better City team than the current one that King is deemed not good enough to play a part in.
King might not be as good as the young Ralls, but he’s been loaned out which presumably means Bulut rates him below Rinomhota who it’s hard to see any way into the team for. King will be 22 while he’s with Stevenage and, for what it’s worth, I believe in having him here rather than Rinomhota.
I’m always banging about backing youngsters, but, in this case, King should not be classed as a youngster - except to Bulut he clearly is. Let’s not forget now that King is playing for a side that, on present form, could well beat us. It seems he was very good on Saturday in a big win over a side that reached the Play Offs last season and I think it’s reasonable to think some would have watched him on Saturday and thought what on earth is he doing at Stevenage when Cardiff are so poor?
Part of the answer to that question is that, in the last decade, we’ve become the sort of team that loans 22 year olds out as part of their “development”. Doing that at such an age makes sense if you’re in the Premier League, but City really should have made up their mind on someone like King by now.
You've made Ralls sound like Malky's Archie Gray there but he only made six league starts as a teenager here and only started two games in that league cup run (and didn't even get put on the bench for the final).
What sets him apart from King is that when they were both 19 they got sent on season-long loan spells. While Ralls had a good season in the Championship with Yeovil, King struggled at League 2 Crewe and was back here by January (and unable to go out on loan again because he'd already played for two clubs that season).
So, as 20-year-olds the following season, Ralls was ready to 'melt' into our Championship side while King was having to start again with a League 2 move followed by a spell in the Scottish Prem. Both successful this time round but does that mean he's ready to start in the Championship? Especially when the position he plays in is occupied by the manager's own, seemingly immovable, signing? Maybe, maybe not, but surely it's better for King to be playing regular football in League 1 than potentially bench-warming here.
Mark Harris was 21 when he got sent back from a failed National League loan spell but he seems to have turned it around. We let Ajayi go at 23 but the best was still ahead of him, Lockyer didn't become a Championship player till his mid-20s, Regan Poole would've been the same if it wasn't for last season's injury. I'm sure every club has got similar stories. Loans can be a bit of a cop-out in that they save a manager from having to develop a player himself but, to me, it's a better option than a) playing someone who's not ready or b) not playing or releasing someone who may have the potential to come good, whatever age they are.
To what purpose is King being loaned out at 21/22? If we had a history of loaning out players of that age just before they broke into the first team as a regular starter, you'd think there's a point to it, but I can't think of a signle player that's happened with in the last decade or so.
Going back to Ralls, nothing I said about him when he was a teenager is untrue - he was in the first team at 17, started in a League Cup Semi Final at an age when current players tend to be considered whether they're good enough for the step up to the under 21s and was being played out of a position in a promotion winning side before he was out of his teens.
People who like to give the impression they are in the know say that Bulut teally rates Kpakio. However, what is his season going to entail if, as he's done with all but Rubin Colwill and Ashford (him coming on at Derby represented a progression in his career given the way this manager operates) of the seemingly above average crop of Academy products coming through, Bulut only all os him to play the occasional game for the under 21s because he's not trusted yet to play in the Championship in a "proper" game.
It's the same for Giles, until quite recently, he and Kpakio would have come into consideration in meaningful league games (not the end of season stuff Bulut felt he could let youngsters play in last year), especially in a team where senior players are struggling as much as they are currently. There is nothing to indicate though that, no matter how bad things get, our manager is going to seriously consider picking either of them in a league game this side of April. It's players like Kpakio and Giles we should be looking to loan out if they're not going to get into the League team yet.
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.
Surely it's not the club's fault that King failed at Crewe though. Like I said earlier, we sent Ralls and King out on loan at the same age after a small number of league starts each. Ralls did well at Championship level but King dogged it in League 2. I don't see how you can then say we should've treated them both exactly the same on their return. You can hardly blame Lamouchi for not trusting King in a Championship relegation battle having failed at Crewe, King set back his own development there.
Bulut had sent King out last season well before Siopis arrived so he must have seen him well down the pecking order in central midfield and he obviously didn't see him getting past Siopis this season either.
I'm not sticking up for Bulut, I don't know if Siopis is better than King, but it's professional sport and it can be brutal at times. It's not under-8s or Britain's got Talent auditions where everyone can have a fair try. I've seen interviews with King, Fagan-Walcott and Evans. None of them are sulking, they're all looking to make the most of the chances they've been given this season, to become better players themselves and do what they can for their teams. Who knows where their careers will end up but I'm certain they'd all rather be playing than hanging around here going nowhere. They wouldn't have agreed to loan spells otherwise.
Agree with this. You bring up fairness,and you're correct, it isn't fair,some players are afforded more opportunity due to the position they play, their style, versatility etc. I'll mention Colwill for good measure. He's a player with vision, the ability to see a pass, plays with his head up. Most of his colleagues can't do that stuff, so there's always going to be more expectation on him to perform because he has those traits. People say, well what about the others, they're crap and not getting dropped. It's because the bar is set higher for good players, there's a different level of expectations involved. Fair or not, that's the reality. And if it does come off for a player like Colwill, then the rewards are much higher than for a performing Ryan Wintle or Perry Ng etc. Fairness doesn't come into it.
I had trouble seeing how Loramski’s message related to the one of mine he was replying to and, again, I’m not sure how yours relates to what I was saying - maybe you didn’t mean it to.
To be honest, I'm just getting increasingly confused. I think I'm trying to second guess your thought processes. You started off by comparing how we brought Ralls through to King and said it was 'a testimony to what we'd become'. I've pointed out there wasn't that much difference (6-3 to Ralls on league starts as a teenager, both sent on loan at 19) but Ralls was obviously a better player at 20 which is why he became a regular.
King's still making progress though and a stand-out season in League 1 this time round will show that progress is continuing but you'd rather he was bench-warming here for some reason that I can't grasp. You might feel he's ready for Championship football now, and that's fine, but the other 23 managers in our league obviously disagree or else they'd have picked him up on loan instead of Stevenage.
Maybe we should've released King at 20 (is this what you're saying?) but I think that would've been wrong. If he does have a stand-out season now then he's still our asset and who knows what a change of manager could mean for him. If he doesn't push on and we end up releasing him then it's cost us very little. Definitely a risk worth taking for me. He's not even blocking up a place in the u-21s for Academy lads coming through. Oshilaja would be a better comparison than Wharton and O'Sullivan. I'm as sure as can be that King will have a long career in the game but don't ask me at what level yet, I've no issue with the club hedging their bets either.
I used the term "what we've become" because we don't produce our own first team footballers, whereas we did around the time Joe Ralls made his debut. There are endless arguments on here about Rubin Colwill, but, truth be told, he has done superbly compared to any other Academy product since Joe Ralls in 2011. It's taken a long time, but Colwill has established himself as a permanent member of the first team squad and a pretty regular starter while coming up through the ranks and not being loaned out (Cian Ashford may do the same, but he's not there yet). The only other player who i can think of to have done that is Declan John who was able to play quite a bit of first team football in the Premier League as a teenager, but never kicked on and certainly never had opposing managers raving about him like Russell Martin does about Colwill.
The only other players i can think of who have come close to establishing themselves as first teamers are Joel Bagan and Isaak Davies - the first named was nearer to a regular starting place three seasons ago than he is now though, but, given the lack of attacking pace in the current first team, I think Davies would have been playing a lot of first team football, but for his injury. However. Erol Bulut and/or the City hierarchy were of the opinion that both of these olayers were in need of a loan out to aid their "development" twelve months ago, despite the fact that they'd both been in and around the first team squad for a something like two years.
My question to you is name one player who was in our Academy that has established themselves in the first team after being loaned out in the time since Vincent Tan took charge of the club? You may answer Joe Ralls, but I would argue that he was already in our first team squad when he went to Yeovil and it was only that we'd been promoted to the Premier League which brought about him leaving us temporarily. Who else has there been? The truth as I see it is that we may as well have released all of the Academy products rather than loan them out for all the good it has done us - we got a fee for James Connolly as a direct result of his loan to Bristol Rovers, but I can't think of anyone else whose loan even bumped up their value to us as an asset we could sell, but I believe Connolly was eighteen when we signed him from Blackburn.
As for Eli King, I've said all I want to about him - I happen to think he is one of a few City players who have suffered because of the pointless signing of Manolis Siopis and, if i had to guess, the only way he'll become a regular member of the first team squad for us is if we get relegated this season.
That's fair enough, good post. Mark Harris played around 100 games for us so I'd definitely include him as a first team squad member who'd been loaned out. His loans were odd in that all three went wrong but he added some industry to his game and turned things around here.
I'm certainly not saying that loans are always the answer. Every player is different, situations are different. I don't think there's a magic formula for bringing players through, what works for one might not work for another. Players like Saka and Foden established themselves without a loan spell but Kane had four at Spurs and Pickford had six at Sunderland. We haven't had much success bringing players through in recent years but whether that's down to a lack of talent, bad coaching/management, wrong loans, bad luck or whatever is always open to debate. It's easy just to have a go at the club for everything but I think some situations are a bit more nuanced than others.
Maybe we just haven't seen the best of him yet but I agree with you about Siopis and I've said the same in this thread last season. We are where we are for now though. King will only be 22 at the start of next season, I don't feel his chance to make an impact here has gone. He just needs to take care of business at Stevenage this season and better opportunities will open up for him. Hopefully here but we'll see.
Not much of note from our loaned out players this week but if you're a fan of 1-1 draws then there should be something here for you.
Luke Pearce was the only winner as he came on as a sub in Sligo Rovers 2-1 win over Dundalk. Joel Colwill came up with an unconventional assist as Cheltenham got a creditable 1-1 draw at Chesterfield. He picked up the ball just outside his own area and knocked a long, hopeful ball towards the striker, Arkell Jude-Boye (no, not that Arkell Jude-Boye). He just got a touch on it before the advancing keeper and rolled the ball into an empty net from outside the area.
Raheem Conte seemed to be playing at right back yesterday as he got in 90 minutes for Woking in their 1-1 draw at Fylde, Malachi Fagan-Walcott put in a 7/10 performance as York drew 0-0 at Aldershot and Roko Simic came on in Kortrijk's 1-1 draw at Oud-Heverlee Leuven. Ryan Wintle also came off the bench yesterday as Millwall drew 1-1 at QPR. Ryan won't be able play against us on Tuesday week but maybe he'll be able to tie it in with Erol Bulut's leaving do to make it worth him coming down for the game.
Another 1-1 draw at Barry as Josh Beecher came on for his debut against Caernarfon Town. A few ex-City boys to keep Josh company there; Josh Yorwerth, Ben Margetson, Keenan Patten and the excellently named Rhys Schwank. If Rhys makes it in the game I wonder what his fan club members will call themselves? I'd go with Rhysers myself but there may be better ideas.
Newport players may have been lulled into a false sense of security when they were told they had an away game at the Bluebirds this weekend but, unfortunately for them, they were playing Barrow and they lost 2-0, Keiron Evans got 75 minutes in midfield. That was nine minutes more than Eli King got for Stevenage, also in a 2-0 defeat, at Exeter. A 6/10 performance from Eli but that was as good as anyone in a poor team performance.
Ewan Griffiths got another game in goal for Plymouth Parkway yesterday. They were looking for an improvement on last season's result at Hungerford, a 7-0 defeat. As it was, they managed two improvements as they both scored goals and reduced the margin of defeat in a 9-3 loss so well done them. No specific blame on Ewan as far as I could make out. Two more away trips this week, hopefully he'll get more protection. At least he seems to be getting plenty of practice.
Excellent loan report as always. Thanks.
Yes, thanks for doing these.Excellent loan report as always. Thanks.
Yes, thank you Loramski.
For sure...
Sittingbourne hasn't been in the news too much since Henry V stopped off for food on his way back from The Battle of Agincourt but history was made there yesterday so the week's round-up of our loaned out players is obliged to start nowhere else. After a 9-3 defeat at Hungerford last weekend, Plymouth Parkway were beaten again, 3-1 by Poole, in midweek so confidence can't have been high as they took on the 450 mile round trip to Kent in their bid to reach the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup for the first time in the club's history. Our 18-year old keeper, Ewan Griffiths, made a crucial save at 2-0 up as Sittingbourne threatened to get back into the game and Parkway went on to win 3-0. They're now only one win away from the first round proper and three away from being in the draw with big hitters like us.
Elsewhere, Malachi Fagan-Walcott continues his serene progress at York as a 0-0 draw with Eastleigh makes it four clean sheets in a row for him. I'm not sure why he wasn't given the kind of first team chances here that other young players were in the cups last season. Having dispelled any fitness issues during his loan spell at Dunfermline last season I wondered if the issue was an error-prone casualness that ball-playing centre-halves can often have but York have only let in one goal in the six games he's played so far so if he is making mistakes then they're not getting punished. Two more 8/10 performances from him this week, he's been very consistent so far.
While York played against City old boys Sam Bowen and Lloyd Humphries (who joined Eastleigh from Weston in the summer) this week, Raheem Conte trumped that by coming up against Steve Morison yesterday for Woking. Morison's Sutton side won 2-1 with Conte coming on as a half time sub. Woking play York next Saturday in a game that's being called El Loanico by a number of people (one is a number). The game has been moved to 5.30 for tv, naturally.
Conte's wasn't the only sub appearance yesterday as Ryan Wintle at Millwall, Josh Beecher at Barry and Eli King at Stevenage all came on in the second half for their sides. King seems to have been a casualty of Stevenage's defeat at Exeter last week and failed to get on at Wigan in the week before getting only four minutes yesterday. Plenty of time to establish himself there yet though.
Mixed fortunes for the players who did start yesterday. Luke Pearce made an impression as Sligo drew 0-0 at leaders Shelbourne, whose keeper made outstanding saves from both Pearce and Ollie Denham. Cheltenham were booed off as they lost 2-0 at home to Fleetwood, ninety minutes for Joel Colwill but a pretty miserable afternoon all round by the sound of it. Some injury problems there which didn't help, including one to another City old boy, Ibrahim Bakare, who was with our u-21s a couple of years ago.
A better day for Newport after a tough September as they beat Crewe 2-1. Kieron Evans had a lively 90 minutes on the right side of midfield. No goal involvements for our loaned out players this weekend as far as I'm aware but Roko Simic has the chance to put that right as Kortrijk play Union Saint-Gilloise this afternoon.
Thanks for that. A fantastic report, made even more enjoyable by your writing style.👍
Agreed
Thanks, Loramski. Thought it was interesting after Alex Revell's thoughts that King was above L1 level, he's been dropped to the bench. Hopefully only teething troubles.
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