" WE NEED YOUTH and YOUNGER PLAYERS "

What everyone is missing here is, Local players in My opinion show more passion/care for the club, bottle/guts come to mind. Having local talent in Our Side to me, inspires our Fans

Nope - its only money that motivates players nowadays - the youngsters (and their agents) will do what is best for themselves. Local loyalty is dead, untill they have made their millions and are looking towards retirement (Bellamy)

If we are not in the promised land and we have an exceptional youngster with ambition and he is being chased by the big clubs no club will be able to keep hold of them. What we don't want is another Riddler situation where players walk away for free.

If a player is sold for huge profits then this money should then be used to strengthen the squad.

some interesting threads on this subject here tonight .desbluebird is correct with our current academy side have a number of french youngsters playing for them right now .

Today our youth academy side played our cardiff city futsal scholars up at llanishen which is a form of five a side .All players around the 16-18 age group . Our academy boys lost the game which they didn't take too lightly .All the cardiff city scholarship boys are from cardiff and surrounding areas and have only been together for 5 months but they train everyday of the week along with there education .

Futsal football is huge abroad especially brazil , spain and Portugal and Barcelona have the best set up in the world . All the top players now have gone through futsal academies before making the grade at top level .

The morale of the story why are we going abroad when the talent is on our doorstep ?

You would think that given all the past financial problems at our club, that younger players throughout that time would have been given far more opportunities. Of the ones that have, as people have said, they make one mistake and receive the same castigation from jones as Naylor would get for 20 mistakes

I agree Annis this is worrying. Naylor is shite and old, Matthews young and promising. We need youth waiting to get in the first team. It is not a good policy.

" I THINK DAVE JONES IS WRONG "

JUST MY OPINION and BELEIF


Regarding never giving our youngsters a proper run in the side.

Just look at how he treated Ramsey before, if he had played Ramsey more and started him v Pompey well, you never know.

But Serious, look at Matthews/Wilding/Drinkwater(I know not a Cardiff lad) and they are only the youngsters at this moment he has left them to rot or ruined them.

A Great team in My Opinion and a team The Fans can relate to should without doubt have some local talent in it.
We have a Great Accademy But Jones has No Care for it, WHY ? WHY DOES HE NOT LIKE YOUTH ?

I for one love watching local Talent.
How can Naylor(DJ's Pal/Chum) be better than Matthews.

DJ Relies to much on Oldies/Injury prone players and Big Name has beens .

THE YOUNGSTERS ARE CARDIFF CITY'S FUTURE.

Great post on a topic thats dear to my heart, agree 100%

Matthews god potential but hasn't taken his chance
Wilding average
Drinkwater injury prone

Who care how old players are.

Bellamy, Bothroyd, Chopra are all over 26 years old.

They are no longer youth, but they are our best players.

We have no player over the age of 31/32 in our lineup.

We are a squad with an average age of players in their prime - thats what gets you out of this league.

Matthews isnt good enough mate, simple as that. Maybe in a few years but not NOW (thats all we care about). Ok, Naylor isnt better but DJ will always favour a left footer at LB.

Wildig - if he was starting we WOULD NOT go up.

Blake - Makes the most mistakes out of anyone.

Drinkwater - Looked OK, but injury prone... so no loss there. Alls he did was run about and pass sidewards. Not in the same class as Ramsey, Macca and Whitts. Thats why he's gone.

Jarvis , Meades - Appear to be no where near ready for this level.

When we was in a rut, I notice you critisized Jones, fair enough its your opinion. But now, when things start looking up... you find another reason to have a go at him. Just let him do his job.

This argument is not valid imo as its quality thats important not youth.

Who care how old players are.

Bellamy, Bothroyd, Chopra are all over 26 years old.

They are no longer youth, but they are our best players.

We have no player over the age of 31/32 in our lineup.

We are a squad with an average age of players in their prime - thats what gets you out of this league.

Matthews isnt good enough mate, simple as that. Maybe in a few years but not NOW (thats all we care about). Ok, Naylor isnt better but DJ will always favour a left footer at LB.

Wildig - if he was starting we WOULD NOT go up.

Blake - Makes the most mistakes out of anyone.

Drinkwater - Looked OK, but injury prone... so no loss there. Alls he did was run about and pass sidewards. Not in the same class as Ramsey, Macca and Whitts. Thats why he's gone.

Jarvis , Meades - Appear to be no where near ready for this level.

When we was in a rut, I notice you critisized Jones, fair enough its your opinion. But now, when things start looking up... you find another reason to have a go at him. Just let him do his job.

This argument is not valid imo as its quality thats important not youth.

Thats your opinion, but I dont agree with you.

" I THINK DAVE JONES IS WRONG "

JUST MY OPINION and BELEIF


Regarding never giving our youngsters a proper run in the side.

Just look at how he treated Ramsey before, if he had played Ramsey more and started him v Pompey well, you never know.

But Serious, look at Matthews/Wilding/Drinkwater(I know not a Cardiff lad) and they are only the youngsters at this moment he has left them to rot or ruined them.

A Great team in My Opinion and a team The Fans can relate to should without doubt have some local talent in it.
We have a Great Accademy But Jones has No Care for it, WHY ? WHY DOES HE NOT LIKE YOUTH ?

I for one love watching local Talent.
How can Naylor(DJ's Pal/Chum) be better than Matthews.

DJ Relies to much on Oldies/Injury prone players and Big Name has beens .

THE YOUNGSTERS ARE CARDIFF CITY'S FUTURE.

totally agree 100%,young blood is the answer

I think this is quite a difficult subject, everyones ideal scenario would be for us to be challenging in the premier league with a team full of local players. Reality is that we'll be lucky to see a couple of local players in the side if this ever happens.

In my opinion, DJs main problem is that the standard required for a first team player has increased every season for the past 3-4 years of his reign and in reality has increased for the last 10 years. This means that the standard for an academy player to break through is increasing every year, there will always be your players like Rambo who will break through at whatever standard you're playing at because he's got the talent to play at the very top.

The easiest way to look at it is to say, would any of our youngsters get into the QPR first team or the Swansea first team? Wildig and Matthews seem to be the talking points at the moment and I would say that they wouldn't get in either team. So why do we expect them to be given a chance in ours?

If we don't set these standards for the academy players then we are not going to be getting the next Rambo through the academy, we'll be lucky to get the next earnie. Earnie is a hero down here and rightly so, but at the end of the day he's an average championship striker who broke into our team in the old Div three (League two). Our current standards require better than that (just to clarify, I loved earnie when he was here but he was the best example I could think of when comparing players who came through in the lower leagues for us).

The bottom line is that we're not producing players who are good enough to play at the level we require therefore there chances are limited or we ship them out. That standard has increased year on year for the last 10 years and will increase again if we get promoted this year. In many ways, I think it will be worse for the academy kids if we get promoted as it will limit their chances even more unless they genuinely have the talent to play at that level, the only player we've produced in the last 3 years who can play at that level right now is Rambo.

No point in us getting any decent young players.

we only go and sell them!

I agree on the Matthews versus Naylor front but not sure either Wildig or Drinkwater were the answer to our current problems at CCS....

The Bluebirds are gunning for promotion and DJ (love him or loathe him) must be allowed to choose his own side, as he will live or die (metaphorically) by his decisions....

Only Matthews, IMHO, is genuinely up to the standard required to DEMAND a permanent place in the team....

Drinkwater is very good but JET is better and Wildig is still learning, so can we afford to play him continuously as we challenge for the top??

Not so sure myself....

with Matthews we'd have to drop McNaughton/put him at left back, and he also made some howlers when on the pitch

drinkwater had been out injured

wildig played many games last season but we brought in players better than him and he isn't good enough at the moment for a team who wants promotion

Playing young players too much too early is not good for them, they need to be eased in to first team football because the expectation and pressure can be too much for them. Matthews played so much last year because of injuries and lack of squad depth, and probably had to play more than anyone wanted him too and that may be a factor that has halted his development. I think everyone would like to see young local lads playing but unless you have one of exceptional quality they aren't going to be good enough to be thrust into a team chasing promotion and people would be moaning a lot more if we were sat twelfth in the league with a team full of youngsters. This is the best squad we've ever had right now and we are looking to get promoted. Thrusting a 17 year old who isn't good enough into that team has no benefit for either them or us.

If we had a player of 17 who was up to the standard DJ would have them at least on the bench but there's no point playing average players just because they are young and local

I would love to see another Robert Earnshaw i.e. a striker, come through the yourth system. We seem great at developing right-backs (or playing central midfielders at RB ) but we haven't seen a decent striker (I don't count Jerome) since Earnie came through.

Playing young players too much too early is not good for them, they need to be eased in to first team football because the expectation and pressure can be too much for them. Matthews played so much last year because of injuries and lack of squad depth, and probably had to play more than anyone wanted him too and that may be a factor that has halted his development. I think everyone would like to see young local lads playing but unless you have one of exceptional quality they aren't going to be good enough to be thrust into a team chasing promotion and people would be moaning a lot more if we were sat twelfth in the league with a team full of youngsters. This is the best squad we've ever had right now and we are looking to get promoted. Thrusting a 17 year old who isn't good enough into that team has no benefit for either them or us.

If we had a player of 17 who was up to the standard DJ would have them at least on the bench but there's no point playing average players just because they are young and local

Introducing Ledley to the first team at an early age didn't do him any harm. I accept that youngsters can get tried if they play a large amount of consecutive games (as can any player) but that should be dealt with when it happens, rather than trying to second guess.

Removing a youth player from the first team before they need to be can be a reason why their confidence is destroyed with the knock on effect to their development.

Playing young players too much too early is not good for them, they need to be eased in to first team football because the expectation and pressure can be too much for them. Matthews played so much last year because of injuries and lack of squad depth, and probably had to play more than anyone wanted him too and that may be a factor that has halted his development. I think everyone would like to see young local lads playing but unless you have one of exceptional quality they aren't going to be good enough to be thrust into a team chasing promotion and people would be moaning a lot more if we were sat twelfth in the league with a team full of youngsters. This is the best squad we've ever had right now and we are looking to get promoted. Thrusting a 17 year old who isn't good enough into that team has no benefit for either them or us.

If we had a player of 17 who was up to the standard DJ would have them at least on the bench but there's no point playing average players just because they are young and local

Introducing Ledley to the first team at an early age didn't do him any harm. I accept that youngsters can get tried if they play a large amount of consecutive games (as can any player) but that should be dealt with when it happens, rather than trying to second guess.

Removing a youth player from the first team before they need to be can be a reason why their confidence is destroyed with the knock on effect to their development.

Correct Tony, just ASK THE GREATEST MANAGER OUT THERE WHAT HE THINKS, " SIR ALEX FERGUSON "

Playing young players too much too early is not good for them, they need to be eased in to first team football because the expectation and pressure can be too much for them. Matthews played so much last year because of injuries and lack of squad depth, and probably had to play more than anyone wanted him too and that may be a factor that has halted his development. I think everyone would like to see young local lads playing but unless you have one of exceptional quality they aren't going to be good enough to be thrust into a team chasing promotion and people would be moaning a lot more if we were sat twelfth in the league with a team full of youngsters. This is the best squad we've ever had right now and we are looking to get promoted. Thrusting a 17 year old who isn't good enough into that team has no benefit for either them or us.

If we had a player of 17 who was up to the standard DJ would have them at least on the bench but there's no point playing average players just because they are young and local

Introducing Ledley to the first team at an early age didn't do him any harm. I accept that youngsters can get tried if they play a large amount of consecutive games (as can any player) but that should be dealt with when it happens, rather than trying to second guess.

Removing a youth player from the first team before they need to be can be a reason why their confidence is destroyed with the knock on effect to their development.

Correct Tony, just ASK THE GREATEST MANAGER OUT THERE WHAT HE THINKS, " SIR ALEX FERGUSON "

Alex fergusson has always slowly introduced youth players into the team, Beckham, Butt, Scholes and the nevilles also made a only a few appearances a season before finally breaking into the first team, Beckham was loaned out (as we have done with Wildig) to Preston. It's also a different scenario because these players were top class players look at the youth players Man United have released without giving them a go in the first team, Ebanks-Blake, Ryan Shawcross, Craig Cathcart and unfortunately I imagine drinkwater in the future. To have young players in the first team they have to be good enough and slowly introduce to first team football, unfortunatly we don't have any youth players ready to be introduced to a team chasing automatic promotion.

" I THINK DAVE JONES IS WRONG "

JUST MY OPINION and BELEIF


Regarding never giving our youngsters a proper run in the side.

Just look at how he treated Ramsey before, if he had played Ramsey more and started him v Pompey well, you never know.

But Serious, look at Matthews/Wilding/Drinkwater(I know not a Cardiff lad) and they are only the youngsters at this moment he has left them to rot or ruined them.

A Great team in My Opinion and a team The Fans can relate to should without doubt have some local talent in it.
We have a Great Accademy But Jones has No Care for it, WHY ? WHY DOES HE NOT LIKE YOUTH ?

I for one love watching local Talent.
How can Naylor(DJ's Pal/Chum) be better than Matthews.

DJ Relies to much on Oldies/Injury prone players and Big Name has beens .

THE YOUNGSTERS ARE CARDIFF CITY'S FUTURE.

I concur with every word of that. Such a waste of talent. All that mobney spent on nurturing this talent to lose it for peanuts or next to nothing

So which of our youth players would everyone want starting in our first team at the moment. Other than Matthews I don't any one I would want to be anything other than a bit part player and even with Matthews I would prefer Super Kev or Quinn over him at the moment for their experience and although I don't rate Naylor I wouldn't want to play Matthews out of position at left back as he doesn't have a left foot and a few bad games there could crush his confidence, I also wouldn't play him at right midfield at the moment as we have Burkey, JET or even Whitts who could currently do a better job than him there.

Hopefully he won't be sold and we see him become more tactically astute defensively and become a great full back or become a good winger for us in he future

" I THINK DAVE JONES IS WRONG "

JUST MY OPINION and BELEIF


Regarding never giving our youngsters a proper run in the side.

Just look at how he treated Ramsey before, if he had played Ramsey more and started him v Pompey well, you never know.

But Serious, look at Matthews/Wilding/Drinkwater(I know not a Cardiff lad) and they are only the youngsters at this moment he has left them to rot or ruined them.

A Great team in My Opinion and a team The Fans can relate to should without doubt have some local talent in it.
We have a Great Accademy But Jones has No Care for it, WHY ? WHY DOES HE NOT LIKE YOUTH ?

I for one love watching local Talent.
How can Naylor(DJ's Pal/Chum) be better than Matthews.

DJ Relies to much on Oldies/Injury prone players and Big Name has beens .

THE YOUNGSTERS ARE CARDIFF CITY'S FUTURE.

I think I understand the point you are trying to make and agree that it would be nice to see some local lads in and around the first team squad. But , in my view the sentiment has to be put to one side if they are not good enough.

How many local players have there been in recent years that have been good enough to be in the side on a regular basis and weren`t?

I believe Ramsey was clearly good enough to have been selected more but am undecided whether Gunter was or not. I don`t think Blake is capable of being anything more than the occasional substitute if we really want to be a top Championship team or better , and can`t think of anyone else that is challenging (you mention Matthews and Wildig , but neither of those are local lads - Swansea and Hereford respectively).

Like most Academies , ours will be lucky to develop one player per season good enough to be a first team regular and maybe one more that might get the occasional squad appearance. Anything else woulod be a bonus.

I think I understand the point you are trying to make and agree that it would be nice to see some local lads in and around the first team squad. But , in my view the sentiment has to be put to one side if they are not good enough.

How many local players have there been in recent years that have been good enough to be in the side on a regular basis and weren`t?

I believe Ramsey was clearly good enough to have been selected more but am undecided whether Gunter was or not. I don`t think Blake is capable of being anything more than the occasional substitute if we really want to be a top Championship team or better , and can`t think of anyone else that is challenging (you mention Matthews and Wildig , but neither of those are local lads - Swansea and Hereford respectively).

Like most Academies , ours will be lucky to develop one player per season good enough to be a first team regular and maybe one more that might get the occasional squad appearance. Anything else woulod be a bonus.

Agree with you Keith, but questions have to be made over DJ's judgment on numerous occasions.

Matthews made a mistake - thrown under the bus in the local media, disappeared from view for months. Given DJ scrapping reserve league entry, was hardly like he was getting game time to work on his faults - yes, you can train and practise, real experience comes from full matches.

Gunter - played some games, disappeared from sight, seemingly blamed for something... took playing out of position for Wales to get him noticed.

Ramsey - total lack of faith in his ability to play central midfield.

Matthews has a hell of a lot of upside - comfortable on ball, attack minded. Weaker defensively than say Blake. With J-E-T seemingly taking Burke's role, there was every chance Matthews could convert and later move back to right back. Can anybdy seriously claim Matthews right back, Super Kev left back is a worse full back pairing than anyone which includes Naylor?

Wildig, it's probably a season too soon for him, imo, but he's shown some potential, some nice play at times.

Magennis probably had to go if he believed he'd made it - if his head wasn't right - but it was utter folly to Jones to get rid just before the playoff final, when he was the natural replacement for Bothroyd...

Jones is way, way too conservative in his approach with regards to young players. With no reserve team, that then damages players development. Especially when we don't seem particularly adept at loaning them out. And to be fair, why would teams want to borrow a youngster when there's no footage of them available, no reserve matches to scout?

I am not the only person who feels this way

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34270

There have been many opportunities throughout the season for DJ to give the likes of Matthews, Wildig etc a crack at the whip but he hasn't for some reason.

DJ does seem to have his "favourites" who can make mistake after mistake and face no bench time - look at Naylor, although he may be turning a corner now after his Stoke performance he's been fairly poor on a weekly basis yet never gets benched. Poor Adam Matthews scored one own goal and had a big of a 'mare in that game and got instantly dropped and publicly lambasted for the performance by DJ.

There is no reason why when we were hammering Doncaster and Leeds 4-0 that the likes of Wildig, Matthews and even the younger lads like Nat Jarvis aren't given a 20 min runaround to give them some experience.

There have been many opportunities throughout the season for DJ to give the likes of Matthews, Wildig etc a crack at the whip but he hasn't for some reason.

DJ does seem to have his "favourites" who can make mistake after mistake and face no bench time - look at Naylor, although he may be turning a corner now after his Stoke performance he's been fairly poor on a weekly basis yet never gets benched. Poor Adam Matthews scored one own goal and had a big of a 'mare in that game and got instantly dropped and publicly lambasted for the performance by DJ.

There is no reason why when we were hammering Doncaster and Leeds 4-0 that the likes of Wildig, Matthews and even the younger lads like Nat Jarvis aren't given a 20 min runaround to give them some experience.

Good post

I just read this on another Forum

interesting Read


I was quite saddened to hear of Drinkwater's departure as I thought he had a lot to offer our midfield in terms of energy, aggression, and creativity.

He joins a long list of youngsters crushed by DJ such as Gunter, Ramsey, Blake, Matthews, Wildig and to a certain extent Quinn.

Gunter was only picked after playing well for Wales away to Germany. Ramsey was either benched or played at left back while the hapless Rae strutted his stuff in midfield. Blake has been pushed from piller to post playing left back, right back, centre back, and occasionally midfield dog, but more often than not dropped for the likes of Naylor or Rae. Matthews was doing really well until a couple of errors saw him get a public hanging and sidelined for months on end.

These youngsters will make mistakes but they are all talented players who just needed an arm around them and then given a run of games to develop confidence and build momentum.

However, over the years the likes of Rae and now Naylor have put in piss poor performances but were still given game time over our youngsters. This has led to our performances being a little sluggish and lacking that high tempo you need at this level.

W~ith Drinkwater and Wildig gone, and Ramsey only here for a month we are left with yet another sluggish central midfield with the likes of Oli, Rae, and McPhail that will fail to protect our over worked back four.

I dont think Jones has used some of the younger players enough in the past, including Ramsey and Gunter.

This season I dont really agree, Matthews I personally dont think is as good as people say, Wildig not good enough compared to what we already have. Drinks had his place and lost it due to injury. Blake IMO has had plenty of chances this season.

I do wish we had sent some of them out on loan earlier tho