Manager Watch: Ange Postecoglou

[HildoSpur]

I do wonder where all this stuff about Ange not trusting the youth is coming from? Is it all about him playing Royal ahead of Philips or something else?

Only Chelsea (youngest ave team 23.1), Burnley (23.6), Brighton (24.2), Arsenal (24.3) and Bournemouth (24.5) have fielded younger teams than us (24.7) this season.

In fact when you look at the stats, we have consistently fielded among the youngest teams in the league.

Yes that is pretty much the reason - we have a few high profile people in here pushing this agenda.

 

[Nebby]

I do wonder where all this stuff about Ange not trusting the youth is coming from? Is it all about him playing Royal ahead of Philips or something else?

Only Chelsea (youngest ave team 23.1), Burnley (23.6), Brighton (24.2), Arsenal (24.3) and Bournemouth (24.5) have fielded younger teams than us (24.7) this season.

In fact when you look at the stats, we have consistently fielded among the youngest teams in the league.

He's shown himself to be quite brave in his selections, which suggests he understands the individuals at his disposal. He knows who is ready to play and who isn’t.

 

[mil1lion]

Then they're talking out their hoops as AFAICR players cannot leave the field of play without the ref's say so.

So he needed to go down and then hope the ref stops the game for physio's to come on and you're in the hands of gods as he probably thinks he faking it.

I may be wrong but that's always been my understanding of the rule. Same as physios etc can't run onto pitch without permission and game being halted (see when players have gone down with cardiac issues/or fans in the stand on the opposite side of the pitch need similar assistance)

Happy to be corrected though.

e.g that Turkish side who all walked off in protest at a ref's decision recently; congratulations you've forfeited the match 3-0 only exception is having permission prior to the match such as when England played that racist bunch of twats, if any England player had said to Kane (who was captain) I'm getting racist abuse we should leave the pitch, Kane would have told the ref they're walking off and there'd have been no repercussion's on England.

No that can't be right. We always see players limp off injured to be treated with the game resuming. An example is when a player collides with the advertising boards. I guess the ref would just indicate to say he recognises the player getting treated. It's more annoying when a player is by the side of the pitch and drops down when they could just come off. However every team wants their player to go down on the pitch so they can reset if they're winning the game. Veliz actually limped on for a while so that actually helped Bournemouth keep up the momentum anyway. They have nothing to complain about.

 

[mark87]

Apologies if already been posted before

 

[Impspur1]

Yes that is pretty much the reason - we have a few high profile people in here pushing this agenda.

I don’t think it’s an agenda, just a concern that we at last have a few potentially top talents who need to be given game time. As a club we talk about the importance of developing home grown talent but rarely give them opportunities meaning they leave. no point in having a top acedemy performing well across all age groups if they don’t see first team action. The young players we have in our first team have been purchased from other clubs and not our own academy.

 

[spursgirls]

Apologies if already been posted before

Love it! I notice that his voice wasn't husky then.

 

[PaulThurston]

Sorry, just don't get your point.

I thought we were talking about Veliz not being able to get off the pitch without the referee's permission. My point was that he could cross the line and sit on the touchline without asking for permission, therefore allowing the game to flow.

That's all. No mindblowing insight.

 

[Nebby]

I thought we were talking about Veliz not being able to get off the pitch without the referee's permission. My point was that he could cross the line and sit on the touchline without asking for permission, therefore allowing the game to flow.

That's all. No mindblowing insight.

Bookable offence to leave the field of play without the referees’s permission .

 

[rossdapep]

I think the whole "doesn't play youth" is really unfair and unjustified.

He was only at Celtic for 2 seasons and it was all about cleaning up trophies.

When your task is to beat your rivals to all the big trophies in a 2 team league, you don't start giving youth a chance when your under that pressure.

Who's to say had he been there longer and needed to refresh a bit, he may well have introduced younger players.

Pep and Klopp only started doing that after a couple of years, once they had their system fully integrated and trusted players.

Ange was also Australia u17 and u20 coach so he knows a lot more about those players than the majority of people.

 

[TOLBINY]

They should be established by age 20. That is how it is seen in academies. Established means getting enough full games. That’s not an opinion btw

Spot on Hercules - TTA (age 20), Reece James (21) and Mount (22) were all regular starters and won ECL medals at the ages shown.

We should know by age 20, because they have played enough meaningful games in the Prem, if a player from our academy either;
has it - so keep
doesn't have it - so let go
there might be something there - so give them a little more time to prove one way or the other

In the last ten years we've only really seen Kane, Winks, Skipp and Tanganga come through the ranks, and only one of them. albeit world class, has made it. There's a case to argue we persevered with Winks for too long and are in danger of doing the same with Skipp.

 

[McFlash]

Spot on Hercules - TTA (age 20), Reece James (21) and Mount (22) were all regular starters and won ECL medals at the ages shown.

We should know by age 20, because they have played enough meaningful games in the Prem, if a player from our academy either;
has it - so keep
doesn't have it - so let go
there might be something there - so give them a little more time to prove one way or the other

In the last ten years we've only really seen Kane, Winks, Skipp and Tanganga come through the ranks, and only one of them. albeit world class, has made it. There's a case to argue we persevered with Winks for too long and are in danger of doing the same with Skipp.

But now Reece James can't stay fit - was that because he was thrust in too young and while his body was still growing?
And Mount was massively over-hyped and hasn't lived up to that at all.

So that just leaves TAA to fit the idea and he came into an established team, with experienced players round him and a set style of play. Not something we currently have.

And to your second point, we spent far too long neglecting our academy and have paid the price for it.
It's only really since Paratici came in that we've started taking it seriously again and while the talent appears to be there, they are all still a year or two away from being 20.
There's no rush to throw them into a disrupted team, especially one that's challenging towards the top of the table at present.

Patience is the most important thing with youngsters and as fans, we can sometimes be too eager for the next great talent to break through.

 

[TOLBINY]

But now Reece James can't stay fit - was that because he was thrust in too young and while his body was still growing?
And Mount was massively over-hyped and hasn't lived up to that at all.

So that just leaves TAA to fit the idea and he came into an established team, with experienced players round him and a set style of play. Not something we currently have.

And to your second point, we spent far too long neglecting our academy and have paid the price for it.
It's only really since Paratici came in that we've started taking it seriously again and while the talent appears to be there, they are all still a year or two away from being 20.
There's no rush to throw them into a disrupted team, especially one that's challenging towards the top of the table at present.

Patience is the most important thing with youngsters and as fans, we can sometimes be too eager for the next great talent to break through.

Using that logic we shouldn't be giving Udogie so much game time.

 

[McFlash]

Using that logic we shouldn't be giving Udogie so much game time.

I wasn't saying that was the reason, just a possibility, hence the question mark.

We've seen plenty of players thrust into regular action as teens and then burn out before they're 30 though.
Owen was a prime example of being over-played as a youngster and knackering his hammies.

There no way of definitively say that's the reason these players have picked up such issues but it may be a contributing factor.
Too much stress on a growing body can fuck them up, not in every case but certainly in some and it's something to be mindful of.

But to be honest, that's all beside my main point that is you can't judge a youngster if they haven't broken through to regular game time by the age of 20, especially in the big leagues.

How many kids burst onto the scene in their teens and yet never manage to reach their potential?
Loads.

 

[Nebby]

Age is kinda irrelevant. You’ve got to be good enough, you need a manager that’s secure in his position and you can’t have an established pro already playing your position. A lot of things need to fall into place.

 

[C1w8]

I don’t think it’s an agenda, just a concern that we at last have a few potentially top talents who need to be given game time. As a club we talk about the importance of developing home grown talent but rarely give them opportunities meaning they leave. no point in having a top acedemy performing well across all age groups if they don’t see first team action. The young players we have in our first team have been purchased from other clubs and not our own academy.

Agendas a bit strong a word but its a bit excessive in the calling for emerson for example to be dropped because Phillips at 18 has spent 4 months at the club and hasnt started yet.

And around the point on the academy Im not sure i can think of one top talent who's left and gone on to prove we mishandled them in our academy by pulling up trees elsewhere? Marcus Edwards is the only one who springs to mind from the recent past and even thats in a weaker league and even then dubious given some of the info shared on this site about his attitude at the time. Most academy players are great in an academy but dont go on to make it when trying to establish themselves at the top (talking title contenders top), playing well against other academies is great but it doesnt mean they will become prem stars.

Lets trust the manager a bit, especially when we're playing well at least.

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

For all the whining about managers not selecting academy players - who has left that has gone on to achieve the level of a key contributor for a contending PL team?

Maybe you can include Madueke who is currently a rotational option for mid-Table Chelsea - with all of his 200 minutes in the league this season. Who else should have been played/kept?

Best player recently to come through has been Skipp, who went on loan and had a great season at Norwich, before coming back and working his way into the 1st team.

I have a sneaky suspicion that some fans tend to rate academy players far above what managers and scouts rate them as - when it comes to their ability to succeed at the PL level. Best thing they can get at a club is an opportunity to train with the first team, learn from the coaches, and to continue to develop. Sometimes players might make the jump straight away, sometimes they need a full-season loan. But, even then, many of our players have struggled for minutes when we send them on loan - so its hard to blame our managers for not selecting them.

Ange is no different - when the players are ready to contribute, I am confident he will select them.

 

[C1w8]

For all the whining about managers not selecting academy players - who has left that has gone on to achieve the level of a key contributor for a contending PL team?

Maybe you can include Madueke who is currently a rotational option for mid-Table Chelsea - with all of his 200 minutes in the league this season. Who else should have been played/kept?

Best player recently to come through has been Skipp, who went on loan and had a great season at Norwich, before coming back and working his way into the 1st team.

I have a sneaky suspicion that some fans tend to rate academy players far above what managers and scouts rate them as - when it comes to their ability to succeed at the PL level. Best thing they can get at a club is an opportunity to train with the first team, learn from the coaches, and to continue to develop. Sometimes players might make the jump straight away, sometimes they need a full-season loan. But, even then, many of our players have struggled for minutes when we send them on loan - so its hard to blame our managers for not selecting them.

Ange is no different - when the players are ready to contribute, I am confident he will select them.

And invariably when they do get game time for many the fan verdict ends up somewhere between "theyre ok as a 3rd option squad player" or "not good enough". In reality that is the level of player that populates most academies when the context is a team/club looking to establish a permanent top 4/title contender level.

 

[Bluto Blutarsky]

Love this description in Ali Gold's latest blurb:

Postecoglou threw his arms up in the air in disbelief and then he heard shouts from the Bournemouth bench, seemingly suggesting that Spurs were trying to get Veliz to go down in order to waste some time.

Cue a scene that was not too dissimilar from many found in the 2023 movie Cocaine Bear as an enraged and quite frankly terrifying Postecoglou launched himself across his technical area and it took most of his staff including assistant boss Chris Davies, one member of the security staff and the bewildered Brennan Johnson - who couldn't help but smile at the chaos - to step in the way to prevent him from mauling everyone with a Bournemouth badge on.

ETA: football.london asked Postecoglou what the sudden coming together was all about as you certainly wouldn't like him when he's mad.

"I was fine. We were just wishing each other happy new year," he said. "It's alright. Just a little bit of emotion in the game. I was more concerned with Alejo because we were kind of trying to get him off the field, and apart from my physically going on the pitch and dragging him off he wasn't really going to go down.

"So we were just shouting at him and I think the Bournemouth staff thought, I don't know what they thought, maybe that we were trying to make a substitution but we knew we had none. It was just about getting him off."

 

[mil1lion]

Spot on Hercules - TTA (age 20), Reece James (21) and Mount (22) were all regular starters and won ECL medals at the ages shown.

We should know by age 20, because they have played enough meaningful games in the Prem, if a player from our academy either;
has it - so keep
doesn't have it - so let go
there might be something there - so give them a little more time to prove one way or the other

In the last ten years we've only really seen Kane, Winks, Skipp and Tanganga come through the ranks, and only one of them. albeit world class, has made it. There's a case to argue we persevered with Winks for too long and are in danger of doing the same with Skipp.

And we're regularly starting Udogie (21), Johnson (22), VdV (22) and Sarr (21) while the likes of Donley and Phillips are only 18 and Veliz (20) is getting minutes
He plays youth , he just doesn't play the younger less proven ones as much so we need to decide whether to loan them

 

[TOLBINY]

And we're regularly starting Udogie (21), Johnson (22), VdV (22) and Sarr (21) while the likes of Donley and Phillips are only 18 and Veliz (20) is getting minutes
He plays youth , he just doesn't play the younger less proven ones as much so we need to decide whether to loan them

Correct - but all those you name (except Donley) are players we have bought in, the point Hercules made and I supported is about our own academy players.