Esenga

[MickTheBeard]

I see esenga is wanted by a Swedish club and possibly next week he's 19 20 in feb plays left back or centre back good at set plays.Thought he was fair lacked a bit of pace.Biggest problem is he won't fetch much money Swedish league so I can't see much advantage let's hope the manager had a say and not you no who.

[Roberty]

The Bearded Bard; is maybe a disciple of J K Rowling and Happy Potter
Out of intense fear, they are not able to say Voldemort
Just as Thespians, refer to Macbeth as the Scottish Play
The Bearded Bard, now refers to our Director of Football as " He Who Must Not Be Named"

[AJW48361]

Pereira nicknamed him Roberto Carlos let's hope we have not missed out on something special.

[btffc]

Pereira nicknamed him Roberto Carlos let's hope we have not missed out on something special.

Great left foot on set pieces but he does not have the athleticism for the PL

[TheOnionBag]

Pereira nicknamed him Roberto Carlos let's hope we have not missed out on something special.

Great left foot on set pieces but he does not have the athleticism for the PL

It's so difficult to predict how a player will progress (I know this is stating the obvious but bear with me) a couple of years back I saw Jon Esenger a fair few times, as has been mentioned he had/has a magical left foot and I thought he would really kick on, however watching him last year he wasn't as influential in games and seemed to get caught our with balls played behind him. at the same time as seeing Jon I saw the u18s play a pre season game and a very young Logan Cooke was playing if you could picture Peter crouch's early games but without the ball control that's how I saw him, fast forward a couple of years and he seems to have developed well and now has me eating my words fair play young man.

[jayffc]

Looked a liability to me. Could certainly whip one but not cultured enough on the ball and lacking football IQ for me. Got caught out a bit too much for my liking.

No real loss
Nothing we can do about a fee so not sure what Micks going on about, just the usual tagged on digs for little to no reason - he's out of contract and has declined to renew, whereas others like Amissah have stayed on. So we'll get compensation but not a fee.
 

[alfie]

Mick makes a lot of good points in his posts, but I wish he would just stick to facts and cut out the snide unnecessary remarks in his posts. I think all of us by now know Mick doesn't like them, so he doesn't need to keep repeating it.

[cookieg]

Unfortunately we don't really seem to be able to have a conveyor belt of youngsters coming through to the first team and then to be sold for big money. Maybe our scouting system isn't that good at spotting real talent at an early age as we do let go of a lot of youngsters who seem to then disappear. There have been a few who have gone on to bigger and better things - Sess for example but then you look at his brother who won with England at Under something age but is now at AFC Wimbledon.   

[SG]

No real loss, get shot, ship out and other phrases. I wish we would be more respectful towards our players however good or poor we think they are

[jayffc]

Unfortunately we don't really seem to be able to have a conveyor belt of youngsters coming through to the first team and then to be sold for big money. Maybe our scouting system isn't that good at spotting real talent at an early age as we do let go of a lot of youngsters who seem to then disappear. There have been a few who have gone on to bigger and better things - Sess for example but then you look at his brother who won with England at Under something age but is now at AFC Wimbledon.   

Are we doing worse than others? Our academy regularly outperforms the clubs size and status compared to other "bigger" clubs so not sure I would agree that our scouting of young players isn't that good.

In recent years we've sold Stansfield for 15m-20m
Josh King is now a regular first team player that could be worth huge money if his trajectory continues
Ridgeon was hotly anticipated but got injured
Sam Amissah is highly rated
Zepa is apparently being touted by Arbeloa
Olly Sanderson is doing well for Celtic - (unfortunately we cant do much if they kids wont sign)
Sess is back in our first team after originally being sold for a wedge
Rodak and Betteneli were both key in promotion seasons.
Harvey Elliot moved to liverpool albeit we got compensation but not nothing
Same for Carvalho who played for first team
Dan Burn was at the world cup
Woodrow managed to play in the prem and champ after leaving
O'rielly was signed by Brighton
Many such cases.


All academies let go vast majority of players who disappear, that's just the nature of the game and realities of it being competitive...but I doubt our is much worse than any other club and actually would hazard a guess it's probably better than most - given our youth teams successes.