I'm looking forward to seeing Lewis Baker play for the Owls He should do well for us, looks like a great prospect. Thanks for the loan

Regular updates please Kitty

comment by Kings Road (U1762)
posted 45 minutes ago
Also Tibo is a walking example to all our young player's that they WILL get a chance if they get to the level required.
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Again another poor example Kings. He was left at one club for THREE years of non stop football as 1st choice keeper.

Must have done his confidence a world of good not being shunted around all the football backwaters of Europe

comment by BrummieBlue! (U3487)
posted 9 minutes ago
Regular updates please Kitty
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Will do word has it on one owls forum that his dad is from Sheffield and is a BIG owls fan.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Matic yet as one of those youth players who we let go and ended up turning into a great player (causing us to re-sign him).

Cheers Kitty, I hope he has a great 2nd half of the season for my next favourite club after Chelsea!


mini, an excellent example of not identifying your top prospects and giving them a platform to show what they can do!

It cost us around £20m to find out how good Matic was!

Re. Kalas...One game(in which we set up ultra defensive) is not an adequate measure of how good a players performance is, certainly shouldn't be used as a reason to support staying in the squad.


Would rather use his extensive time spent at Vitesse in which he was a regular feature(76 apps, only ONE sub) as an indicator to whether he's good enough to be in the first team squad.


Sample size is important when judging a player.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Brummie sorry for the late reply but Tibo got the chance to stay at Leti for 3 years because he earned it on performances, when he went there he had competition in the form of Sergio Asenjo but blew him out of the water almost immediately. If for example Boga goes to Lillie for two years and establishes himself he would get a chance here im sure of it.

As I said with Clifford after the YC win he was the most hyped up player in that team after McEachran, I remember back in 2010 on the old 606 there were constantly hypothetical "Chelsea line up in 2014" and quite a lot of those lineups had Clifford in it.

Mini, one out of how many?

I lost count of the amount of times we sell a youth player, which causes the usual lines of "poor lad, he deserved a chance, what a naughty soulless club we are" and those player's turn out to vanish off the face ofthe earth, out of interest where is the next Ashley Cole that is Aziz Deen Conteh at these days?

Aziz Deen Conteh? But we're talking about Baker, RLC, Kalas - players we could start trying out now!!

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

comment by Kings Road (U1762)
posted 6 hours, 53 minutes ago
Mini, one out of how many?

I lost count of the amount of times we sell a youth player, which causes the usual lines of "poor lad, he deserved a chance, what a naughty soulless club we are" and those player's turn out to vanish off the face ofthe earth, out of interest where is the next Ashley Cole that is Aziz Deen Conteh at these days?
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For every Matic there's probably a player we ruined by sending out on too many loans, moving them around too frequently before they could really settle.

Sometimes it just takes a bit more trust on our part for a youth player to flourish. They don't even need to become world class - even a squad role would mean we're saving around 8-15mil.

At the moment, I worry that Kalas and Chalobah could join that list of ruined youngsters to be honest.

And I agree that we shouldn't just lump them into the 1st team but a few appearances here and there wont hurt. Especially in the cups - the watford game for example. Only Ake got a run out and it was for less than 30 minutes. There's no way our youth is going to integrate properly into the 1st team if that's what they're getting.

I think our main issue comes down to Jose's lack of rotation in all honesty. He plays the fringe players so infrequently that it's almost a necessity that they get a run out in these cup games meaning there's rarely any spaces left for youngsters.

If we start utilising our squad a bit better and not running players into the ground (I think it was 8 players that started every game over the winter period) then we'll start to see more of our youth players getting a chance.

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

comment by minididi (U17584)
posted 27 minutes ago
comment by Kings Road (U1762)
posted 6 hours, 53 minutes ago
Mini, one out of how many?

I lost count of the amount of times we sell a youth player, which causes the usual lines of "poor lad, he deserved a chance, what a naughty soulless club we are" and those player's turn out to vanish off the face ofthe earth, out of interest where is the next Ashley Cole that is Aziz Deen Conteh at these days?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

For every Matic there's probably a player we ruined by sending out on too many loans, moving them around too frequently before they could really settle.

Sometimes it just takes a bit more trust on our part for a youth player to flourish. They don't even need to become world class - even a squad role would mean we're saving around 8-15mil.

At the moment, I worry that Kalas and Chalobah could join that list of ruined youngsters to be honest.

And I agree that we shouldn't just lump them into the 1st team but a few appearances here and there wont hurt. Especially in the cups - the watford game for example. Only Ake got a run out and it was for less than 30 minutes. There's no way our youth is going to integrate properly into the 1st team if that's what they're getting.

I think our main issue comes down to Jose's lack of rotation in all honesty. He plays the fringe players so infrequently that it's almost a necessity that they get a run out in these cup games meaning there's rarely any spaces left for youngsters.

If we start utilising our squad a bit better and not running players into the ground (I think it was 8 players that started every game over the winter period) then we'll start to see more of our youth players getting a chance.
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mini that is an absolutely excellent post and perfectly sums up how I feel about our youth policy

Lewis Baker made a cameo appearance in the Owls 2-0 win at Nottingham Forest today. Was only on the pitch for about 10 minutes - am expecting him to get more game time at home next Saturday

(U1750)

comment by ＴＬＬＬ (U4640)
posted 13 minutes ago
(U1750)
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You can call me Kitty

Cheers Kitty - keep it coming

Will do Brummie

Here's to Lewis doing the business for the Owls Kitty

Me-ow !

soccer?lol.

Lewis Baker made another short appearance today, coming on as sub in the 78th minute. It had been a very poor Wednesday performance and I noticed Lewis making space for himself on the pitch and he wasn't picked up by any Bolton player.

After Lewis had been on for only about 3 minutes he had a great chance to score from a good position in the 6-yard box, but a Bolton defender made a great block, denying him a goal on his home debut.

Still too early to get any definite opinion of him, but I'm still hoping for good things from him.

Thanks Kitty for the update

- no game now for 10 days. Maybe Lewis might get a start next time v Birmingham?