But should he change this winning team when Son and Richy regain fitness? Would they improve us? He has decisions to make.
Except for the comment about GK, I couldn't disagree more. These are just excuses. If we can`t get/find these kinds of players, what are we doing as a football club, and more importantly, what are the people running the football club doing? Would this happen at Liverpool? Arsenal? Manchester City? Villa? Chelsea? or any other properly run club? I mean, we 'just couldn't find a LB'. Really? Nonsense. We were told by the chairman that all of this would change with the new stadium and the PSR rules. Well, guess what? As for Ange, you have to question a manager who is happy to send defenders out on loan, not include some of them in the squad, and be happy to play an 18-year-old out of position and a player who should have been rubbished years ago in their place.
You know who isn't complaining about the club not backing the manager, and the manager being forced to play teenagers? The manager! It's his plan and the club are executing it. He's been very clear that he only wants to bring in players that he thinks will be good in his system. So when I say they couldn't find a left back or another center back, I mean they couldn't find somebody Ange wanted. And it's starting to look like the guy knows what he's doing, so I'm not complaining.
Look, he played them because we had injuries and suspensions and it was the Europa League. Let's not kid ourselves. I hope they do well, because the injuries are starting to pile up and they are going to play, not because of any grand plan from the club, but because we have a wafer thin squad to be competing on four fronts. Otherwise they would have started against the likes of Arsenal and Newcastle if they were the next coming of the Class of 92.
'....The first thing is that they're part of our first team squad, not because I want some young players, it's because they've earned that spot and then it's about how to help them develop and the moments we need to put them in there, the moments we need to hold off. We can't discount the fact that Archie is 18, Lucas is 18. I thought Archie was brilliant today. We asked him to play in two different positions and it's incredible how he just adjusts and he's able to bring his game to wherever he put him. Lucas worked hard and Will was unlucky with a couple of moments when we could have got a goal. These guys are there because they've earned their spot, but they're an important part of our development because whilst we want to be a team that has an impact this year, like I said before, it's important we're developing players along the way so that whatever sort of period of potential for success or opportunity for success exists, it's elongated because of the young players you get through. I just think tonight all those boys will come to me and go, 'okay that was tough, it was different, but we got through it and we won'." Ange's quotes re the youungsters
A lot of managerspeak in those quotes for a guy who has not started any of those players in a PL game. Let's see if he starts the four of them at Brighton. Of the quartet, Moore is the only one who I would start. And we weren't exactly playing Real Madrid. Bergvall was poor, kept giving the ball away and it was no surprise when he was hauled off after 65 minutes. Lankshear was ok, but I don't think their defenders were shaking in their boots when they saw the team sheet, and when Bissouma played him in for his best chance, he pulled a Werner and got crowded out. I would love to see Gray play in his natural position, to me he is not a good defender, he was caught out of position a number of times, and like Bergvall gave the ball away a lot. He was nowhere to be seen on their early goal that was chalked off on the most wafer thin of VAR offsides. 40 mil is a lot to pay for a kid to fill in in defense in cup games against mediocre opposition when the regulars are unavailable. With the exception of Moore, the other 3 should be on loan to play regular minutes. I think they all have potential, but potential doesn't win you anything in football, proven players do. We did this with Kane, Deli and Sarr and Arsenal did the same with Saliba. We have been talking 'youth projects' and 'potential' for 24 years under this ownership, with little to show for it on the pitch. We heard the same claptrap with players like Bostock, Taraabt, Onamah, Nkoudo, Sessegnon, Gil, Winks, Skipp, Janssen, Carter-Vickers, Parrott, Scarlett and others who were all bigged-up by the club but turned out to be duds. Our scatterbrained transfer policy has left us in a position where the manager, however he sugarcoats it, had no choice but to play them.