Losing players like Devlin, Tilio and Hollman is where the salary cap is hurting us and is another reason why it should be scrapped. Because the club has had its shit together for several years now our first team is settled and successful meaning we’ve been able to focus on producing our own talent through the academy. The first of those graduates are rolling off the production line now and soon, hopefully, it will become a steady stream.
We should be signing them to long term first team contracts and loaning them out for a season or 2 until either there’s a regular playing role in the squad for them or they haven’t developed into first team quality and are moved on. Unfortunately the salary cap and loan/transfer system in this country doesn’t really allow for that.
We get the best, most ambitious kids and when they realise they have Ninkovic in front of them they go elsewhere. The alternative is not having Ninkovic because the next Joel Chianese needs game time (the Wests approach).
There a more photos me holding the toilet seat (fucked off 12% beers - still don’t believe they are a thing) then there are of Wests players. I’m fine with our approach.
More so with our current stock of players, we can afford to be very picky. It’s a different situation if we were sending players off and then getting pumped by the same players over and over again. We’re winning and we also have a decent crop of youth. The fact that players are moving teams is more so that they can quickly become first team players in other lower teams, or they can sit on the bench waiting until an older player leaves.
In all seriousness, of all the biggest teams in the wold, it’s only really Barcelona that’s made it big with developing talent regularly and keeping them in their first team, and even they’ve lost a fair few younger players to other teams.
EDIT: Never mind, the game starts in a few minutes. U20’s have won their game 3-0, so I believe that confirms them as finishing top of the U20’s table.
3-0! Wood finishes one off after a lively second half from him. We’re probably not going to finish in the finals, as Sydney United 58 are in front in their game, but take nothing away from a really good season for the NPL team.
I’d easily be giving Swibel minutes before Wood next season. Swibel seems to have a lot more to his game at this point in time. Wood is quick, gets into good positions and is a handy finisher, but from what I’ve seen (which is not much) he still needs time to develop other parts of his game. I believe he’s still 17, so there’s time for that yet.