Quote Originally Posted by hopelesslyoptimistic View Post
I may be old school but I quite like it that the progression is hard and has to be earned albeit I would have liked to see Drameh, JG and Summerville get some PL action last year.

MB is a genius lent to us for a short period of time and happy to trust him to select players when he thinks they are ready.

Struijk got game time in the EFL so was always on MBs radar and yes he played against Liverpool due to injuries but MB the recognised his quality and used him more and more.

We also had 4 great signings last year in Koch, Rapha, Rodrigo and Llorente so maybe not surprising that with those 4 plus Roberts, Shacks and Poveda that not many youngsters got game time. Roberts typically looked the best player on the park when playing for u23 so maybe shows how much some of them still need to develop.

If Orta pulls off the same trick with this years signings then that’ll do for me
See this is where you are wrong with Struijk. Yes he used him due to injuries and the kid shined and I can't remember him having a bad game. Injured come back straight into the team and we didn't see him again till later when more injuries hit. If we don't have the injuries this season you watch him fade away into the background or move on!