Fraser Taylor - Loan to Ballmena Utd

[stlucifer]

1 hour ago, FTOF said:

Behave yourself.

No amount of whataboutery will change the phrase, "That's more to do with the manager's lack of belief than the ability of the boys in question".

No "maybe" or "if" in there.

Anyway, you'll be happy to know this will be my last post on the matter. Fact.

If you are incapable of reading more than one part of a post, or decide not to, to allow you to use a part of a whole statement out of context, that's on you. Your lack of intellect knows no limits.

[kevo_smfc]

On 1/5/2024 at 4:58 PM, Stu said:

The lack of youth players getting a chance in the first team is concerning and it's pretty much been the case since Robinson came in. Whether that's because he doesn't rate them or they aren't ready/good enough I'll leave for others to debate because I know very little about the situation in the academy (not that lack of knowledge usually stops people having arguments online). Does anyone who knows about our youth teams know who is likely to be the next to come through? It is a bit of a surprise we found ourselves with no one to put in midfield on Tuesday, or have been playing guys out of position at right wing back rather than giving a young guy a shot. I'm guessing the guys we have in those positions either aren't deemed ready or are out on loan.

You'd have to imagine Reid and whoever we lost to Burnley (apologise, forgot his name) would have been involved by now if they had hung around. It's probably the first time we've been victims of losing kids who have barely kicked a ball for the first team because a bigger club is happy to spend relatively little in the hope they come good. There's not really much else we could have done with them. Henderson would maybe have been a bit more involved had he stayed and I'd have liked us to keep him and let someone like Olusanya go if we could find a taker, even if he has improved, but he obviously wanted more regular first team football, which he wasn't going to get with our system - and seemingly hasn't at County because of injury.

I think some of the kids got some game time in the League Cup. Since then, we've rarely been in a position to chuck the young guys on for some experience late on without any pressure to do something because most of our league games have been tight. I did find it odd we didn't put Jamieson on against St Johnstone (and we made a number of subs at 3-0), however he then got brought on against Hibs and has had some game time since then. Apart from him, I don't think we've had that many young players on the bench - I think Lennon was on it for one league game and away on loan shortly after.

It's a shame as since we sold Erhahon - and Robinson deserves a lot of credit for his progression, even though he was well established in the first team when he arrived - we haven't really had one of our youth products getting regular first team games and I can't remember the last time we have been in that position for as long as this. We had a great run of midfielders and you can draw a pretty much unbroken line from Erhahon back as far as you care to go - I'd traced it back to McLean, then remembered Stephen McGinn - and he broke through at pretty much the same time we sold Lappin (with Shuggy there the whole time!). And that's not forgetting guys in other positions who did well for us like Naismith, McAusland, Baird and Kelly, who were all good players even if they didn't get big moves.

Hopefully Taylor will get his shot, either this season or next. Going by his comments on the Open Goal podcast, Robinson really rates him - however given he joked he'd have liked to loan him to Barcelona for experience due to his style of play I don't think he would have been the answer on Tuesday night!

I'd said at the time, the timing of his contract running out was unfortunate as he would have most likely made his proper breakthrough this season with more appearances on a rotation basis. He was always destined to move on though.