Montel Gibson

Quoted from diehardmariner

In the defence of Gibson, he's started 7 games for us in the league, a further 2 in the EFL Trophy.  He's started consecutive games just twice and never made it to three consecutive starts.

Of course you can argue that the reason for that is that he's not good enough and has wasted his chances.  But he's hardly had a fair crack of the whip to get going has he?  

Liam Hearn took what felt like an age to get going in his first season (I think it was ten games) but he was given time to bed into his new environment and make that step-up.  Now I'm not saying Gibson is the new Hearn, far from it even though he does have some similarities in his style of play.  But we can't write Gibson off just because he's not set the world alight with his here and there half chances.

Regards Akpa-Akpro....I'd have him back over anyone we've featured up front this season.

Didn't get a consistent run of games because he was crap in most of the ones he did play. Barely made a threatening run forward where he wasn't offside, his finishing was dire, positional play not great and didn't do much pressing and defending from the front. He looked like a fish out of water for me and a move downwards will do him the world of good I'm sure.

Going back a few years but Alan Devonshire.  Moved from non-league Southall to West Ham and a few years later playing in an FA Cup final.

Quoted from bax

Didn't get a consistent run of games because he was crap in most of the ones he did play. Barely made a threatening run forward where he wasn't offside, his finishing was dire, positional play not great and didn't do much pressing and defending from the front. He looked like a fish out of water for me and a move downwards will do him the world of good I'm sure.

Totally agree. Especially when it comes to his *always* being offside. Coming from so much further down the pyramid, I imagine he can get away with lurking just behind the line as the defenders will drop more readily when a ball is played forward. Defenders are much more savvy in the FL, push higher and don't drop back as easily.

(It does feel weird describing L2 defenders as "savvy", but I guess everything's relative.)

Quoted from ginnywings

But that's not true is it? There are dozens of examples.

I bet there aren't many teams in this league without a smattering of ex non league players in their squad and first team.

Dozens of example out of how many that were signed? People look at Vardy etc and think 'oh lets just pick a player out of Non League and bingo' which seemed to be Holloways idea, he rated himself that highly that he thought he could make a poor player somehow miles better.

Interesting you say that though, out of the top 10 strikers in the league this season, only one can be classed really as being 'plucked from Non League' recently and that is Max Watters, who I mentioned earlier. The rest have mainly come from EFL clubs and looking at the top 20 scorers off the top of my head maybe one of them was plucked from NL recently. You could make a case for Joe Ironside at an absolute push, but he had a season in the EFL before Cambridge got him.

Given the amount of clubs that sign 'unknowns', the % of them that turn out to be any good whatsoever is pretty low. Even when Bogle is mentioned, the guy was at, WBA, Birmingham and Celtic, dropped down and absolutely banged them in in NLN. We signed 3 lads way further down the ladder than that with nowhere near that pedigree.

Quoted from bax

Didn't get a consistent run of games because he was crap in most of the ones he did play. Barely made a threatening run forward where he wasn't offside, his finishing was dire, positional play not great and didn't do much pressing and defending from the front. He looked like a fish out of water for me and a move downwards will do him the world of good I'm sure.

You mean a bit like the rest of the shite playing for us?

Quoted from pontoonlew

Dozens of example out of how many that were signed? People look at Vardy etc and think 'oh lets just pick a player out of Non League and bingo' which seemed to be Holloways idea, he rated himself that highly that he thought he could make a poor player somehow miles better.

Interesting you say that though, out of the top 10 strikers in the league this season, only one can be classed really as being 'plucked from Non League' recently and that is Max Watters, who I mentioned earlier. The rest have mainly come from EFL clubs and looking at the top 20 scorers off the top of my head maybe one of them was plucked from NL recently. You could make a case for Joe Ironside at an absolute push, but he had a season in the EFL before Cambridge got him.

Given the amount of clubs that sign 'unknowns', the % of them that turn out to be any good whatsoever is pretty low. Even when Bogle is mentioned, the guy was at, WBA, Birmingham and Celtic, dropped down and absolutely banged them in in NLN. We signed 3 lads way further down the ladder than that with nowhere near that pedigree.

I don't think anyone would argue that it's a gamble when bringing in non-league players, but as I said further up that's the case with all signings.  Be it from non-league, our level or a higher one.  Quite simply our recruitment has been poor since we returned to the Football League.  Nearly 5 years of poor recruitment, it's no surprise we're in this current position.

one things for sure - we will be seeing a lot more non league players ina Town shirt next year!

Quoted from ska face

Hurst had a decent record of being in for players but missing out whilst we were non league, if that can be classed as a “decent record”. Think we were in talks with Andre Gray, Freddie Ladapo, Akinde and a few others I can’t quite recall now who have all gone on to have decent careers after swerving us.

All Hurst ever did was buy the leading young scorer from the league below , Bit like Neil Warnock used to do .
Hurst as far as I can remember never brought any lads from our youth team into the first team .
If I was a Town youth player now I’d forget about a career in football

Hurst spoke about the youth team issue just before we got promoted I think.

Basically he wanted to bring young lads in but because of a) a tight budget and b) the immediate focus of getting back in the league, he could never justify a plan.

Very few young lads are ready at 18, they usually get to about 20/21 when they're good enough to really have a good in the first team.  With a clear remit on the immediate and nothing about long-term planning, we were never going to give contracts like we've done to Clifton, Wright etc. when we could have used that money to sign someone who might just have helped pick up a few extra points over the course of the season.