Long Term Investment in youth or short term investment in youth?

[sirpiechucker]

To me Quashie and Cousin are just sellotape. They will do a patch up job but will they fix what has been broken for a long time?

We have one simple choice: Invest in an academy and bring more Balanta's, Sterling's and German's through or invest in other people's youth and sign ourselves more Connolly's and Simpson's.

Signing Quashie or Cousin aren't going to provide long term solutions to problem areas. They'll solve the problems for 5 minutes until we either change levels or sack yet another manager who wants different players.

Now is the time to give Connolly the captain's arm band and to start playing the likes of Ephraim, Rose, German and Balanta on a more regular basis. If they are ready for this level they'll show it and if they are not then why continue to keep players on the books just to play reserve team football? We need to show to the other clubs that we are the team to play for as you'll have an opportunity to succeed. Just like at Arsenal and at Everton and at West Ham. We could be the same. We'd also save ourselves millions of pounds in the long term.

I'd rather sign a 20 year old Jay Simpson on a permanent deal who has years ahead of him then to sign Dave Kitson for 6 months who'll earn 3 times as much and who's best days are behind him. I know the are others out there who'll agree with me that the prospect of signing someone elses flop is about as exciting as going to the dentist and what this club really needs is a vision.

Our players playing for our shirt not someone elses has beens just here to ride the gravy train. Give youth a chance.

[ollyhoops]

The problem with the youth set up is that if they are any good they go straight to arsenal/tottenham/man utd etc.... so it can end up costing the club money. Also, there is not any guarentee that it will produce top players, they are very costly to run and maintain and like I say it can all be for nothing.

Our best option is to invest in bringing players to loftus road like Simpson/Heaton/Connolly etc as you are investing in pure talent that can flourish into something special, as long as you invest in the right person for a small club like ours I see that the best route.

Thats my view anyway.

[eghamhoop]

i cant wait for nigel to sign, can sit in the middle with faurlin and push ledge to full back.

[W12_Ranger]

What will happen is Quashie & Cousins will look like world beaters for the first 5 games. Then QBP and friends will declare what master strokes these 2 signings are and that we are back on for the Play Offs, the drum will come back out, we will start a new song thread for Cousins and then they will fade. The likes of Balanta, German & Hogey will barely get a look in for the rest of the season.

SPC entirely agree with your post and have echoed your sentiments many a time on this subject matter. A youth academy thats quite a novel thought for a football team, so what has our DOF done in the past 2 1/2 years to get this going?

We don't do long term unfortunatley, we are only interested in short term fixes, papering over the cracks or to use your analogy 'sellotaping', sounds about right.

[superhoop67]

i cant wait for nigel to sign, can sit in the middle with faurlin and push ledge to full back.

The excitement is too much

[Mr M]

I hear they may be putting Seaman into the youth set up. We have always had good keepers

[Ginger Ninja]

i cant wait for nigel to sign, can sit in the middle with faurlin and push ledge to full back.

i dont think thats gonna happen mate, i can see faurlin being dropped in favour of nigel, who will partner legs in the middle, with connolly/ramage at right back.

[Voiceofreason]

i dont think thats gonna happen mate, i can see faurlin being dropped in favour of nigel, who will partner legs in the middle, with connolly/ramage at right back.

I think it may go back to a 4-2-3-1 formation that worked so well before mahon got injured

[Voiceofreason]

On Mr Sirpies thread.....

We should be trying to pick up the likes of Connolly for sure. The problem is alot of the youngsters dont like to jump down from the Arsenals of this world as they want to play for them.

This is why i have the upmost respect for Connolly. Wenger had offered him a new deal and wanted him to stay but instead of sitting behind the other world class players such as Toure, Galles, Djouoro, Senderos he has moved to play football and make a career for himself. It shows a confidence in his own ability and must have taken some balls.

How many players at the top clubs go from club to club on loan still with the hope of playing for there parent club? Look at the likes of Scott Sinclair, Mancienne, Lee Martin. They have all been to 4, 5 or 6 clubs on loan. Martin only left Utd at 22. Connolly could have done this but he has played 60 odd games for us, how many do you think he would have played for Arsenal?

[themodfather]

during the 80s our yth teams regularly won trophies and brought forward many talented players, that we
1) used
2) SOLD ON...

an fa academy is ESSENTIAL TO QPR, TO ENSURE WE ATTRACT AND KEEP THE BEST YOUNG PLAYERS WE CAN FIND...

if we had a good academy, eventually this would benefit the team....

[Hertford Hoop]

I hear they may be putting Seaman into the youth set up. We have always had good keepers

You may want to re-phrase this comment :embarrassed: We don't want any members getting into trouble with the Paedo police :devil:

[sirpiechucker]

I ask a genuine question which should be of great interest to every QPR fan and get less than 200 views but yet another boring anti/pro Paladini thread gets 1000s of hits.

There lies the problem with QPR FC there is always more concern about the manager/the board/Paladini then the actual players on the pitch.