[quote=“KIB man”]John Fleck - never heard of this geezer. Potential?
Delfouneso looks pretty decent but a bit lightweight yet.
Have more than a feeling that Jack Wilshire has more in common with the Brady bunch than Liam Brady. Not enough pace to be a wide man and is lacking a lot of attributes to be a central midfielder.
Kieran Westwood is getting good reviews at Coventry and should be Irish second choice.
No sign of this James McCarthy kid although I saw on SSN that Middlesboro are making enquiries after dropping their interest in McGeady.[/quote]
They’ve been trumpeting Fleck for a couple of years now and he’s done damage to Celtic youth teams and has made a few appearances for their senior side. This article might explain why he hasn’t been getting any game time this season:
Part of the agreement with the new company is that Rangers must pay them compensation whenever a young player makes 10 first-team appearances. This decision to sub-contract the nurturing of future players to a separate entity has perplexed fans, who fail to understand why their club should now pay such a fee where previously none was required.
It certainly does seem absurd that they have to pay a fee for players they use from their own youth academy! So, the fact they’re in dire straits financially is perhaps affecting their use of him but he is only 17 in fairness. Even still, I would have expected him to be used more by now - he’s very strong physically for his age.
Overall, it’s a bit of a weird list - 15/50 are from England and a good chunk of them are with League 1 and 2 clubs. Then they’ve thrown in proven players like Benzema and David Silva at the end.
It’s a bizarre list. Haven’t looked at the original article to figure out what the criteria is. But you’ve the likes of Silva and Benzema and established guys like Lavezzi competing with Mark Beevers of Sheffield Wednesday.
Still hope for him I suppose. 10 goals in 41 appearances for Swansea was decent. You’d think if he was good enough though, he’d have played by now. He is 20 after all.
Becomes an England international in Football Manager. Which never lies.
Still hope for him I suppose. 10 goals in 41 appearances for Swansea was decent. You’d think if he was good enough though, he’d have played by now. He is 20 after all.
Becomes an England international in Football Manager. Which never lies.[/quote]
What about that young spanish fella Pacheo or something? Played a couple of pre-season games. Supposed to be shit hot
I’d say he’s a bit away yet. He made his debut for the U21s in a qualifier away to Portugal in Oct/Nov and we drew 2-2. I believe Givens decided to pick a team containing players that were all eligible for the next campaign as they were already out so it was a young side and a good result. He’ll probably build up his experience at that level over the next 18 months anyway.
He’s doing decently for Hamilton this season too and they’re using him in a few positions. They play one upfront so he sometimes plays off the lone striker or wide left, as well as a traditional centre midfield position. It will be interesting to see if he moves on in the summer - playing in a team with better quality would probably accelerate his development.
[quote=“ClarkeyCat”]How’s Fabio in there but Rafael’s not?
Not surprising that there be no Liverpool players in there although Insua might be worth a shout.
Crappy, ridiculously arbitrary list.
I’m off to check what ever happened to Paul Anderson.
C’mere I asked elsewhere a while ago but never got to check for an answer - how far is James McCarthy from the Irish squad/first team?[/quote]
He’s probably not too far from the squad, not ready for the first team. He’s improved his performances a bit in the past couple of months from the highlights I’ve seen. He looked decent enough early on in the season but nothing that would stand out too much. Looks a bit classier now.
Much of it depends on what sort of player Trap is looking for because he likes his midfielders to sit deep and pass the ball. McCarthy’s not unsuited to this in that he’s not an all-attacking guy but he’s not the type to just sit in the centre circle and play passes with his full backs, which is what Whelan has been asked to do.
This is pretty funny. We were taking the piss out of The Times’ list the other night and it’s been revealed that #30 is a completely made up ‘Eastern European starlet’. From The Guardian’s Fiver yesterday:
THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE
The Fiver’s never been much of a fan of practical jokes. Never mind the forced bonhomie and ubiquitous and in-no-way insincere tears of hilarity that accompanies every gotcha money shot - it’s the morbid fear of tidy beards as worn by serial pranksters Noel Edmonds and the late Jeremy Beadle that really scares us. But we’re going to make an exception for the story of Masal Bugduv, a 16-year-old Moldovan sensation, and reportedly the best prospect to come out of Eastern Europe since Gheorge Hagi.
The hole was prepared back in July and the trap set by sprinkling a few spoof news agency stories recording his prowess on various blogs to cover the top of it. Bugduv was said to have sparked a bidding war between Zenit St Petersburg, Arsenal and Liverpool who had been monitoring his progress at Olimpia Balti ever since “he scored a stunning goal against Spain in the qualifying rounds for this year’s Uefa U-19 championship, aged just 15 years and 12 days”. And the tale gathered pace when news appeared that his agent, Sergei Yulikov, had brought him to London in August for talks with Arsenal. “I have no doubt that he has the ability of Fabregas and Nasri,” his Mr 15% was reported to have said, “but he needs a stage to perform and prove this.”
Sadly, his proposed transfer was stalled by “red tape” but there was a glimmer of a silver lining for “Massi” when a poster called hotbovril, put up the news from a wire agency on eleven-a-side.com, that Reading would sign him and loan him out to Cork City to qualify for a work permit. Yulikov was quoted as telling the newspaper Diario Mo Thon that the move “can only be good for him”. One eagle-eyed skeptic noted that Mo Thon in Irish translated as “my arse” and, ahem, pooh-poohed all the details.
And there it might have ended but come the January transfer window his name cropped up again and again, and this time in When Saturday Comes, The Independent and The Times, who put him at No30, in their list of football’s top 50 rising stars this week. And who could blame them? Their source was trusted and if the Fiver was asked to compile such a list we’d have been chewing the carpet long before we’d got past 15 names. However Bugdov’s inclusion on The Times list sparked the attention of the soccerlens blogger Fredorrarci (http://guardian.chtah.com/a/tBJb3POAY30QpAe9jDFBRpo9uJ8/fvr14 ) who exposed the Moldovan Maradona story as the fine piece of fakery it is. Cue red faces in certain quarters and sighs of relief in Fiver Towers.
Number 16 Buonanette could have been a great player by all accounts. Was involved in a bad car crash around 2009/10. He was badly injured but three if his mates died. Think he’s playing in Spain now but never quite the player he could’ve been.
On 2 August 2009 it was revealed that Fleck had been dropped from the Rangers first-team after a training ground bust-up involving a bucket of chicken, with the then assistant manager Ally McCoist.
[QUOTE=“Thrawneen, post: 956484, member: 129”]On 2 August 2009 it was revealed that Fleck had been dropped from the Rangers first-team after a training ground bust-up involving a bucket of chicken, with the then assistant manager Ally McCoist.
:D[/QUOTE]
