When the Cherries acquired Hyndman, they presumably weren't aware that Jack Wilshire was going to be made available to them...................... Bournemouth isn't a deep club. Young Hyndman was presumably brought in to be depth while being developed for the future. Then the club acquired more players like Wilshire that pushed him out of the 18. This is what happens in real life. We have these clubs like Chelsea that just stockpile young talent. They currently have more players out on loan than are in their first team (including Miazga of course). Last I looked it was 36 players. This is what Premier League clubs do. They acquire "assets." Bournemouth has 16 players out on loan. They're not of the same quality as Chelsea's, but its a "loan army" nonetheless. Those players don't gain value if they're sitting on the bench or in the stands.
Jeez, the kid couldn't even make the bench in a match when they had midfield injuries and Wilshere unavailable due to the terms of his loan back in late November. But go ahead continue believing that it was an ill timed injury and signing Wilshere that explains his lack of opportunities with Bournemouth this season...
No shi*. Do you think you're telling me something I don't know? As I've stated earlier in this thread, it was clear to me that Hyndman was an "asset" acquired by Bournemouth for the future. Young with an intriguing skill set but not yet ready for prime time who was available on a free.
What is the deal with this argument? You guys are going in circles...................................its pointless. Both arguments can be true. Hyndman's injury that kept him out all pre-season was "ill-timed" AND he hasn't proven yet that he's "premier league ready." Eeefus. He's 20. Every just needs to be patient and let the kid develop. He's what, 4 years younger than Sebastian Lletget?
I gave a reasonable opinion, and you jumped down my throat. Settle down. Jesus...........................you can't possibly care this much about what others think of Emerson Hyndman. Just so we're on the same page, I've actually met Emerson Hyndman (and Schellas) multiple, multiple times.
Eh, I didn't "jump down your throat" until you came back with the silly "why are we having this argument" post... And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Enough already. You've apparently been dying to make that point and it's made. Some of us clearly don't care one way or another. All we want at the moment is for him to get some playing time.
I don't think these discussions about Hyndman can be avoided. Just a very polarizing player. Some think he's a future NT star, others don't think he'll be able to even be a NT regular. And of course everyone will use the facts that favor their argument and downplay the facts that don't. I think we all hope he's a NT star, the question is whether those that think he will be are right or those that don't think he will be are right. Who knows? Good that he's playing well now. Whether or not he will be incredibly good or not that good isn't influenced just by what has happened positive or negative this season, so I wouldn't use either as a definitive statement of where his career will go, one way or the other.
Emerson was named Rangers player of the month for January/February (he also got goal of the month) https://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/double-awards-emerson/ While not a surprise, still nice recognition for the kid. However this has folks over in YA making serious comparisons to Claudio Reyna's tenure at Rangers. This leads me to the conclusion that some posters still just don't appreciate how far the quality of the SPL has fallen since the Reyna, Beasley and even Edu eras. The Rangers Claudio signed for in 1998 spent 36 million pounds on player transfers the season they acquired him (signing two full Dutch internationals along with Claudio (and others)). Rangers have spent just a little over that amount on players over the past decade. Over that same 10 year period, average salaries in the SPL have actually declined by at least 50%. Today, more than half the teams in the league pay the equivalent of English League 2 wages (and correspondingly are of league two quality). The long and short of it is that last year Emerson had 18 appearances in the Championship and now he's playing in a much worse league, the quality of which falls somewhere between League 1 and League 2 (a league where a team which spends like a top tier Championship side hasn't lost a game (and only drawn one) the entire season).
Fair point about the wages. One big reason for the recent decline was because Rangers was out of the league, but I can accept the SPL might not attract the same player it did ten years ago. I still think dominating the SPL as essentially the best player is still a very good sign for a young player like Hyndman, and justifies the excitement around him.
The decline in wages actually started years before Rangers went into administration. Now Rangers demotion to the bottom tier of Scottish soccer only made things worse, but the problems went (and go) much deeper. It's sad to see what's happened, but the fact of the matter is that unless you're signing with the Old Firm, League 1 is a more attractive financial proposition (and the quality of today's SPL is sadly reflective of that fact).
Fair assessement. I don't know, it's just that I could not tell a difference between the SPL of today and SPL of yesteryear that I watched Edu and co beat up on. But that salary stat is telling.
It is. And as someone who's watched way too much of the SPL over the past decade, there is no question that that has translated to the quality of play you see on the pitch. Like I said above, this is now a league that falls somewhere in between League 1 and 2 in England (whereas a decade ago it was something like between the Championship and League 1). Heck, even Celtic now have what amounts to only a top tier Championship squad (and an average salary lower than all 20 PL teams this season).
I'm not sure that's fair though. Some clubs in the EPL have spent a ridiculous amount of money in the past, compared to other leagues like the Bundesliga, with very little return on their investment. Just look at QPR the year it went down. I know that culture links Scotland and England, but the wages in England (in all leagues) are hugely inflated. While Celtic spends less than it did, it's not really fair to say they're a Championship side. How many Championship sides have had the quality of Forster, Wanyama, van Dijk, Dembele, Tierney, etc.? Why was Stefan Johansen run out of Glasgow because of poor performances after a good first year and now is all the rage at Fulham? To be blunt, wages have been put under stricter control all across the continent while English sides have been throwing it away. I read an article where the Sporting Director of Sevilla mentioned how giddy they were when an English side became interested in one of their players, because they knew they could ask for twice what he was worth. And, interestingly, as the quality of the SPL has decreased, its function as a development league has increased. Coaches are getting younger, it is still frantic but you see many more different styles and tactics between clubs than you did when it was 442 vs 442 (or sometimes a 352) all day every day a decade or two ago. I said this in his YA thread, but if France can be open to calling up somebody in Scotland, then we shouldn't think ourselves above it.
You may be right about all of this, but those inflated wages attract all the top (and even not so top) talent from Scotland such that the SPL is a much weaker league than it was a decade ago. Let's be clear, a decade ago you wouldn't have seen the 2nd highest scorer in the league (a 24 year old) moving to a newly promoted League 1 side for something like $250k... Plenty. Hell, Fulham had Dembele a year ago. And let's be clear that Celtic have only two of those players in their current squad. He wasn't. Celtic tried to get him to extend his contract but he wanted to move south and Celtic badly needed the transfer fee to fund their limited spending this summer.
There's only one Dembele in the squad, but then not many clubs in the world have players that are probably going to be sold for 40 million. The argument is a bit weaker with Tierney. Rogic was getting linked to big clubs before his injury problems came back, Armstrong had Premier League interest before he signed for Celtic (and could probably go for a fair amount now), Brown quite famously spurned Premier League interest back when he signed for Celtic - saying that he didn't want to sign for Reading because "I don't want people wondering 'what happened to that Scott Brown lad?'" and he has only gotten better, especially in the last year or two, Craig Gordon has shown that he is a Premier League-level keeper when healthy, Lustig has 50+ caps for Sweden and has decided to play for a big club in Europe rather than a lower-level club in a top league. I'm not arguing that Celtic would be in the top 10 in the Premier League, but there is quality in the side beyond the 2-3 players we have every year that are very clearly being developed for large transfer fees (such as the Southampton trio, Ki, etc.) Also it's weird that you mention Demebele in the first place since he's stated on multiple occasions how much he has improved at Celtic and how much he has had to up his game. But as misguided as the above was, ehhhh... what!? You actually have this completely in reverse. Rodgers wasn't really happy with him, he wasn't even making the bench in CL qualifiers, he was offered a renewed contract as a squad player after a completely horrible year from 2015-16. He was only let go after Celtic qualified for the group stages and was handed almost 30 million Euros, which was the source of our transfer dealings. The idea that he was some important player and was sold for a paltry 2 million when we had 30 million in the bank is really bizarre. You've really shown that you don't pay attention to what's going on in Scotland with this one.
Eh, the current Celtic squad is a good Championship, bad PL squad. Reasonable minds can disagree and I have little interest in continuing this argument with a rabid Celtic fan incapable of taking his blinders off. And frankly, the larger point I was making (which prompted your initial response) was simply that the quality of the SPL has decreased markedly over the past decade. There's no disputing that fact.
I'd missed this addition to your post. That's really nice of Dembele to say to Celtic fans, and he's certainly right that he wasn't going to get 6 games in the Championship against the quality of opponents Celtic faced in the Champions League group stage, but nobody who knows anything about the game thinks he's had to "up his game" to compete week in and week out in the SPL.
I'm far from rabid. Or maybe I am a rabid fan, but of the US and MLS on the Celtic boards more likely. I think I'm in a pretty good spot if both sets of fans call me rabid for believing that the level in all is pleasant to watch and improving. And in any case, I don't see what I've done to be called rabid except to disagree with you? My overarching point in all of these debates is that, while the SPL has decreased, Celtic and Rangers remain good places for development, or even better than they were back in the early 2000s when they were splurging money on aging Europeans and not giving chances to younger players. Regarding Dembele, if you don't think he has improved or upped his game then I just don't know what to say. You mention reasonable minds disagreeing but then you say things like "there's no disputing that fact" and "nobody who knows anything about the game thinks he's had to 'up his game'".
Eh, I was responding to your stating that he was "run out of Glasgow". Being offered a contract to stay with the club would seem to belie that statement, wouldn't it? Now did he have a disappointing season one year off of being named the PFA Player of the Year? Yes, he did. But he certainly wasn't run out of town and would have been given the opportunity to return to the player of the year form he'd displayed only a season earlier.
I didn't say he hadn't, just disagreeing with the idea that moving to Scotland or the SPL is what led to that improvement. He's a special talent who would be fielding the same offers from big clubs if he'd chosen to stay at Fulham.
You should look at the Celtic boards. When I mention that kind of language it's in the context of the support. He was not wanted by the support, a large majority of whom actually quite disliked him (a bit too much and too personally in my opinion, I expect that his calm Norwegian demeanor didn't sit well with Celtic fans when he was putting in terrible performance after terrible performance) and deemed surplus to requirements by Rodgers. We don't sell players for 2m to fund anything. Celtic are building a hotel, a museum, and a new all-weather dome for the training site, money is not an issue. The club does not budget for CL group stages or for sales - any addition is a bonus. Regarding Demebele again, if he believed that then he would have stayed. He turned down a lot of good offers from top division clubs for Celtic, he was not an unknown quantity. He specifically mentioned development over and over and over as reasons why he chose Celtic.
Who gives a sh** what the supporters think? Especially when we're talking about supporters of the Old Firm. The people who actually matter offered him a contract and if he'd signed it and returned to his player of the year form (which he appears to have done at Fulham), those same supporters would have been singing his praises. BS. I suspect Celtic offered him more generous terms than Fulham and he ran to the money (and the chance to add the CL to his resume). Now maybe he turned down a move to a bigger PL side where he thought he might have been stuck on the bench or loaned out in favor of going to a club where he would be certain to play (Celtic), but a kid with his talent doesn't go to that league to develop playing week in and week out against Hamilton and ICT... Which is why he needs to get out of there this summer.