duncanjwitham

Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry failed to score in the majority of their games. They scored some goals obviously, but the fact remains, they spent the larger part of their games not scoring goals.
Alan Ferguson failed to win the league the majority of the time.  He won it a few times of course, but the fact remains he spent the larger part of his managerial career not winning the league.
Do I need to go on?

The point I'm making, is that you're just quoting raw numbers without any context.  I'm not denying that your numbers are correct in terms of the maths being done right, but the meaning you're trying to extract from those numbers is somewhere between nonsense and irrelevant.  My statistic about Henry is absolutely correct numerically, because in the majority of games he played he failed to score a single goal.  But it's also complete nonsense semantically, because he was a massively prolific goal-scorer.
If a player has played 300 games at Championship level, he is clearly a player capable of playing at Championship level.  The fact he might also have played 400 games at League One level doesn't diminish that fact.  Your error is compounded because the majority of players you are talking about have shown a clear career progression - i.e. going up the leagues as they get older, continue to improve and demonstrate their ability, then maybe drop back down as they go past their peak.  That is exactly the pattern we'd expect to see with many players.  If we were talking about players who had spent the majority of their career alternating between e.g. League One and Championship, then maybe you'd have a case that they were struggling to make the step up to the higher level, but that isn't really the case with any of our players (AFAIK).

Maybe it's just me, but if a player plays a bunch of games at League One level, then steps up and plays a bunch of games at Championship level, then steps up and plays a bunch at Prem level, that makes the player a Prem player.  Not a player who's spent most of his career in the lower leagues 🤷‍♂️.

In the last league game, 8 of the starters had played 100+ times at Championship level or higher (I.e. the league above where we are now), many of them significantly more times than that. The others being Wildsmith (who’s been excellent since he’s been here) and Cashin and Fornah (2 very good young players).  What “things of significance” do you expect them to have done? We have players who’ve got promoted out of this league. Players who’ve been promoted to the prem. Players who’ve been in the League One team of the year.  We are still a league one club, we aren’t going to be fielding a team full of current prem players.

Maybe it's just me, but if a player plays a bunch of games at League One level, then steps up and plays a bunch of games at Championship level, then steps up and plays a bunch at Prem level, that makes the player a Prem player.  Not a player who's spent most of his career in the lower leagues 🤷‍♂️.

The point I'm making, is that you're just quoting raw numbers without any context.  I'm not denying that your numbers are correct in terms of the maths being done right, but the meaning you're trying to extract from those numbers is somewhere between nonsense and irrelevant.  My statistic about Henry is absolutely correct numerically, because in the majority of games he played he failed to score a single goal.  But it's also complete nonsense semantically, because he was a massively prolific goal-scorer.
If a player has played 300 games at Championship level, he is clearly a player capable of playing at Championship level.  The fact he might also have played 400 games at League One level doesn't diminish that fact.  Your error is compounded because the majority of players you are talking about have shown a clear career progression - i.e. going up the leagues as they get older, continue to improve and demonstrate their ability, then maybe drop back down as they go past their peak.  That is exactly the pattern we'd expect to see with many players.  If we were talking about players who had spent the majority of their career alternating between e.g. League One and Championship, then maybe you'd have a case that they were struggling to make the step up to the higher level, but that isn't really the case with any of our players (AFAIK).

Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry failed to score in the majority of their games. They scored some goals obviously, but the fact remains, they spent the larger part of their games not scoring goals.
Alan Ferguson failed to win the league the majority of the time.  He won it a few times of course, but the fact remains he spent the larger part of his managerial career not winning the league.
Do I need to go on?

Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry failed to score in the majority of their games. They scored some goals obviously, but the fact remains, they spent the larger part of their games not scoring goals.
Alan Ferguson failed to win the league the majority of the time.  He won it a few times of course, but the fact remains he spent the larger part of his managerial career not winning the league.
Do I need to go on?

Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry failed to score in the majority of their games. They scored some goals obviously, but the fact remains, they spent the larger part of their games not scoring goals.
Alan Ferguson failed to win the league the majority of the time.  He won it a few times of course, but the fact remains he spent the larger part of his managerial career not winning the league.
Do I need to go on?

Maybe it's just me, but if a player plays a bunch of games at League One level, then steps up and plays a bunch of games at Championship level, then steps up and plays a bunch at Prem level, that makes the player a Prem player.  Not a player who's spent most of his career in the lower leagues 🤷‍♂️.

Maybe it's just me, but if a player plays a bunch of games at League One level, then steps up and plays a bunch of games at Championship level, then steps up and plays a bunch at Prem level, that makes the player a Prem player.  Not a player who's spent most of his career in the lower leagues 🤷‍♂️.

Maybe it's just me, but if a player plays a bunch of games at League One level, then steps up and plays a bunch of games at Championship level, then steps up and plays a bunch at Prem level, that makes the player a Prem player.  Not a player who's spent most of his career in the lower leagues 🤷‍♂️.

In the last league game, 8 of the starters had played 100+ times at Championship level or higher (I.e. the league above where we are now), many of them significantly more times than that. The others being Wildsmith (who’s been excellent since he’s been here) and Cashin and Fornah (2 very good young players).  What “things of significance” do you expect them to have done? We have players who’ve got promoted out of this league. Players who’ve been promoted to the prem. Players who’ve been in the League One team of the year.  We are still a league one club, we aren’t going to be fielding a team full of current prem players.

In the last league game, 8 of the starters had played 100+ times at Championship level or higher (I.e. the league above where we are now), many of them significantly more times than that. The others being Wildsmith (who’s been excellent since he’s been here) and Cashin and Fornah (2 very good young players).  What “things of significance” do you expect them to have done? We have players who’ve got promoted out of this league. Players who’ve been promoted to the prem. Players who’ve been in the League One team of the year.  We are still a league one club, we aren’t going to be fielding a team full of current prem players.

In the last league game, 8 of the starters had played 100+ times at Championship level or higher (I.e. the league above where we are now), many of them significantly more times than that. The others being Wildsmith (who’s been excellent since he’s been here) and Cashin and Fornah (2 very good young players).  What “things of significance” do you expect them to have done? We have players who’ve got promoted out of this league. Players who’ve been promoted to the prem. Players who’ve been in the League One team of the year.  We are still a league one club, we aren’t going to be fielding a team full of current prem players.

Prior to signing for us, he’d played 9 consecutive seasons at Championship level or higher…

In the last league game, 8 of the starters had played 100+ times at Championship level or higher (I.e. the league above where we are now), many of them significantly more times than that. The others being Wildsmith (who’s been excellent since he’s been here) and Cashin and Fornah (2 very good young players).  What “things of significance” do you expect them to have done? We have players who’ve got promoted out of this league. Players who’ve been promoted to the prem. Players who’ve been in the League One team of the year.  We are still a league one club, we aren’t going to be fielding a team full of current prem players.

If I was a club owner, it would be official club policy (to the extent it would be written into managers contracts) that there would be at least one academy player on the bench in every single game.  And I'm not including the likes of Thompson or Sibley who've broken through, I mean someone like Brown or Radcliffe who hasn't yet (you can argue about the exact definitions here, I suppose).  7 subs is plenty of room to allow for it, and it takes all the pressure off the manager if it's club policy (in terms of dropping a senior player for an academy lad).  And any time we're a couple of goals up in match, there's always someone there ready to give some minutes to, rather than it being blind luck that we have a player to bring on in a game we're comfortable in.

I think you hit at the core of why I think keeping Warne on board is going to hurt us long term and isn't the neutral option people often opine it to be. 
You have to take a step back and realise how asymmetrical the footballing system is and how uneven the playing field is to succeed at the highest levels. A club like ours either needs a robust plan to overcome that sustainably as we will likely never be big enough or attract the kinds of backing to seriously compete. (And even if we do we risk the trajectory of what happened under MM). 
Essentially we need something or a set of things we can do differently in order to level things out. And if you look at the success of clubs who have some degree of sustainability and not just relied on boom/bust investment they all have that element to them. I.e. Brentford, Southampton. 
The one major advantage we have as a club is geographical in that we have quite a sizeable catchment area where we can realistically compete for talent at youth levels, talent that otherwise might be prohibitive to acquire after they've matured. But we need to plan with this in mind. We need to have strong development pathways from academy to first team with firm incentives about taking risks on bringing people through and giving them time. 
It's what was so frustrating about last season to me. Last season was practically as free a hit as you get as a club. It was a season to get our ducks in a row and reset as a club. We should have been giving serious game time to developing academy players and recent academy graduates like Thompson. It was a season we could afford to take risks on players  This would have given us a solid foundation of a squad to work from that would improve over time. Instead we kick Thompson on loan and then find ourselves short of cover. Warne is clearly reluctant to trust academy players to the point where its actively detrimental. In a nothing game with a lead once again we were playing players past the point of exhaustion (some of which like bird who are coming off injuries) rather than giving someone game time. 
It feeds into my feelings that as a manager he struggles to see beyond the surface level and struggles to see the bigger picture whether it's tactical, player fitness management or overall club development.

Mate, have you seen the rest of the squad too! They’re all playing in League One as well! How terrible they must be!  Why oh why isn’t our squad full of current Championship players?
Back on track… Korey Smith, 7 consecutive seasons at Championship level before signing for us…

Prior to signing for us, he’d played 9 consecutive seasons at Championship level or higher…

I'm not even sure it's down to trust.  You either have to commit fully to being a team that develops academy players, or you just don't bother at all.  If you genuinely want academy lads to progress through to the first team consistently, you have to be willing to gamble a bit on them sometimes.  Give them some minutes whenever you can, and be aware that it might cost you results in that game, but be willing to accept that, because long-term you will be better off as a club.
If we don't ever play Brown because we don't trust him, he's never going to make the mistakes that he can learn from, and become a player that we can trust.  And then instead of being a 17 year old that needs to develop, he's suddenly going to be a 21 year old that needs to develop, and by then it's probably too late.  Players don't just spring from the academy fully formed and trustworthy.
And obviously I'm not saying throw players in before they're ready at all, or even that we should have put all of the youngsters on much earlier the other night.  But if we think Brown is a genuine championship-level prospect, he should be getting at *least* a couple of hundred first-team minutes over the course of this season.  If he's only getting 2 minutes in a tin-pot cup when we were 2-0 up, he's going to get nowhere near that, especially when he barely even makes the bench in league games.
If you aren't going to be willing to commit to it, you might get the odd Will Hughes-type that comes through and just looks like a first-team player from day one, but you'll never get the conveyor-belt of players that teams like Southampton seem to manage.

I’m just trying to rationalise how on earth he managed to get 3 promotions at Rotherham, because from what I can see at Derby, he seems to have no clue what he’s doing.  Honestly, him inheriting a squad that suited what he wanted and then him just running with it is the best, kindest explanation I can find.

I’m just trying to rationalise how on earth he managed to get 3 promotions at Rotherham, because from what I can see at Derby, he seems to have no clue what he’s doing.  Honestly, him inheriting a squad that suited what he wanted and then him just running with it is the best, kindest explanation I can find.

I'm not even sure it's down to trust.  You either have to commit fully to being a team that develops academy players, or you just don't bother at all.  If you genuinely want academy lads to progress through to the first team consistently, you have to be willing to gamble a bit on them sometimes.  Give them some minutes whenever you can, and be aware that it might cost you results in that game, but be willing to accept that, because long-term you will be better off as a club.
If we don't ever play Brown because we don't trust him, he's never going to make the mistakes that he can learn from, and become a player that we can trust.  And then instead of being a 17 year old that needs to develop, he's suddenly going to be a 21 year old that needs to develop, and by then it's probably too late.  Players don't just spring from the academy fully formed and trustworthy.
And obviously I'm not saying throw players in before they're ready at all, or even that we should have put all of the youngsters on much earlier the other night.  But if we think Brown is a genuine championship-level prospect, he should be getting at *least* a couple of hundred first-team minutes over the course of this season.  If he's only getting 2 minutes in a tin-pot cup when we were 2-0 up, he's going to get nowhere near that, especially when he barely even makes the bench in league games.
If you aren't going to be willing to commit to it, you might get the odd Will Hughes-type that comes through and just looks like a first-team player from day one, but you'll never get the conveyor-belt of players that teams like Southampton seem to manage.