2023/24 RETAINED LIST

I too have mixed feelings about Eisa. We have to trust Artell's judgement and there are obviously reasons he hasn't featured much in recent months, but he certainly provided some great moments early in the season. I swear that goal against Mansfield was gathering more speed as it rocketed past the goalkeeper into the top corner. Fantastic strike! Anyone who can do that definitely has ability. It will be interesting to see where he ends up.

Eisa has a rocket of a right foot. No denying that. Right, that’s the positives out of the way.

His negatives are that he’s greedy, lazy, never picks the right pass, doesn’t work hard, and his form since DA arrived has been non-existent. If he’d played every game during our run-in, we’d have probably not picked up as many points as we did, as our survival very much hung on a roll-your-sleeves-up attitude, as nothing else was working.

He’ll go somewhere else, blow the fans away for a few weeks, then they’ll work him out.

He just hasn’t been the same since the TV game at Bradford. He was on fire before then, but he came up against that ginger fullback of theirs who obviously knew his game inside out, and he had him in his pocket all game. He was completely ineffectual. Rinse and repeat for the next 35 games.

Quoted from RonMariner

Someone mentioned sending young players to Scunthorpe for game time. I think that is  a good idea. NLN is a higher standard of football then you would get at Clee Town or GY Borough, and the Scunts will probably need players once their budget is slashed. So it is an arrangement that possibly could suit both clubs.

Send them to  Boston instead and possibly a higher standard of football 😎

Bringing two themes of this forum together, the lack of new contracts for young professionals possibly adds even further weight behind having someone like Clifton in the building.

Clearly you're only going to get more than a year upon graduating from the youth set up if you're an outstanding talent who would be trusted to play in a meaningful game (Gardner). Not an approach I agree with, but I get it. Their isn't the finances to give two-year deals out to the likes of Bramwell, who might not be able to contribute to the first team in a meaningful way just yet.

That's all dictated by finances and pressure for results. You can understand why this season we've had the likes of Danny Amos, Michee Efete, Arthur Gnahoua et al. in and around the squad as they're capable of coming in as and when needed. Might not be first choice, might not be spectacular but they're capable in their respective positions.  But it's very much a 'just in case' basis. As and when they're not used, they become expensive wastes.  That's money that could, in theory be used for extra years for Bramwell and Braithwaite to develop for another year.

A Clifton type, who can cover multiple positions might just offset the need for that back up right-back on £800 a week.  Arguably it also justifies the use of loan players from other Academy set-ups as they'll most likely be cheap and able to fill the squad.

Personally I'd like to see a greater commitment to youth graduates beyond a year. They don't all develop fully at 18/19, in fact it's few and far exceptions as to those that do.  I also think it would be a big appeal to those who come here a bit later in their youth development, like Gardner and before him Mattie Pollock. In the age of 7 subs I think you've always got space for a couple of kids and opportunites to blood them at the end of games.  But I also 100% get the 'safer' use of the budget and squad spaces for the here and now.  Sometimes though you've gotta bite the bullet and commit to that source of players.

We need to stop loaning and developing other clubs young players and trust our own process and the players coming through. Have any of our young loan signings recently been miles better than the boys we already have? I would argue not. Give our own lads a chance

Difficult to develop young players here with no reserve team football or u23 matches.. most of the loans our players get are at Clee or Grimsby Boro which are great developing loans at 17/18 but after that they really need a NL North club minimum

Unfortunately we aren't in any position to be developing players over a number of years, we need players who can come in and be competitive in L2 now to ensure we can remain in this division. The luxury of developing young players over years is for clubs competing in the top 2 divisions that have the cash available to dedicate to finding good young players. We don't have the luxury to keep passengers or keep rolling the dice on a local lad that made the fringes of the first team or goes out on loan 3 divisions below and doesn't make an impression. Any major talent we do develop will probably be gobbled up by larger clubs long before they are ready for first team football.

It's a nice little dream to have a team of local lads who have a strong connection to the town and shirt but it's not a realistic one. I get that people want their friend's kids/grandkids or their mates from school in the team as they have a personal connection and they probably provide them with all the inside information they want to hear, taking a pragmatic look though it's obvious that most aren't good enough and the ones that might be have not cracked on and taken their chance to develop fast enough. Very few kids make it in football, clubs get a really quick turnover of kids all wanting to go pro and 99.7% are probably never going to be good enough or will get released and have to work their way up in non-league.

Quoted from Wyberway

We need to stop loaning and developing other clubs young players and trust our own process and the players coming through. Have any of our young loan signings recently been miles better than the boys we already have? I would argue not. Give our own lads a chance

Andrews and obikwu were miles ahead of our young players . They’ll both have a career in the EFL . Nearly all our lads will end up playing part time or just quit . Why? Because they’re not good enough . If they were someone else would pick them up ?

They gave Gardner a three year deal so the money is there if they think the player has potential.

Quoted from Kris2

Unfortunately we aren't in any position to be developing players over a number of years, we need players who can come in and be competitive in L2 now to ensure we can remain in this division. The luxury of developing young players over years is for clubs competing in the top 2 divisions that have the cash available to dedicate to finding good young players. We don't have the luxury to keep passengers or keep rolling the dice on a local lad that made the fringes of the first team or goes out on loan 3 divisions below and doesn't make an impression. Any major talent we do develop will probably be gobbled up by larger clubs long before they are ready for first team football.

It's a nice little dream to have a team of local lads who have a strong connection to the town and shirt but it's not a realistic one. I get that people want their friend's kids/grandkids or their mates from school in the team as they have a personal connection and they probably provide them with all the inside information they want to hear, taking a pragmatic look though it's obvious that most aren't good enough and the ones that might be have not cracked on and taken their chance to develop fast enough. Very few kids make it in football, clubs get a really quick turnover of kids all wanting to go pro and 99.7% are probably never going to be good enough or will get released and have to work their way up in non-league.

I may be wrong but I believe the idea is to bring in 'Conteh' type players, develop them and sell them on for a nice profit. I'd much prefer we develop our own youth but as stated in this thread it takes too long, we haven't any competitive leagues ( U23, reserve etc fixtures ) for them to progress through. Sorry to say, and I don't like it, but gone are the days when we developed the More's, Drinkall, Ford and many others. It's a totally different scenario these days.