Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
I think you're right about us having a different philosophies on the game, but I think you may be misunderstanding me concerning my attitude towards younger players at the club through the last decade or so. I've always believed that any young player has to earn their place in the side, not just be presented with one because they came through the Academy. My concern is that, almost entirely, young players have not even been part of the conversation when it comes to first team selection for nigh on a decade.
Instead, in the past whenever a vacancy, like the current one at left wing back, has cropped up at Cardiff since Dave Jones' days, the attitude has always been okay, lets go and buy someone. That someone has often been nothing special, overpriced and, more often than not, with no sell on value.
The policy has worked to the extent that we've been promoted twice, but it seems to me that the net position we find ourselves in under Vincent Tan's time in charge is slightly worse off on the pitch, an extension to the Ninian Stand added, an Academy which has not been serving its purpose and debt levels that are far higher, although not as threatening, as they were under Peter Ridsdale. It's not surprising in the slightest that Vincent Tan has decided to cut back on the football budget at a time when the parachute payments have stopped and gate receipts have declined.
Like others, I think you're over dramatising things. As has been pointed out by Cardiff 55 and myself, the only young players likely to start on Saturday are Bagan and Giles - the first of whom acquitted himself well in the senior matches he played last season, while Giles, seemingly, had plenty of Championship teams interested in taking him on loan following forty three appearances at this level in 20/21.
That hardly represents the sort of complete overhaul you are claiming. All that has happened is that we've, thankfully, become like most other clubs in having a nucleus of home produced young players who will come into consideration for first team selection if needs be and we've started doing what most other Championship clubs have been doing for years - occasionally recruiting from levels below us, rather than nearly always looking to the Premiership or Championship if there's a gap to be filled which cannot be done so by a youngster already at the club.