TOPIC: Tim Sherwood on signing Lower League Players

Interesting article/interview this today...

www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams...m-lower-leagues.html

The Vardy story has got debate going, PL would rather sign a 28yo Austrian as a reserve than chance a Football League prospect...

I have seen a tweet a lot recently, thats been brought back up, from a Leicester fan, pretty miffed when they signed Vardy for £1m from non league. I still kind of think £1m is over the top for a non league player, but I bet he's got egg on his face now!

I'm not so sure there's as many great prospects in the non league as people are saying.

You'll get the odd player who develops late or has slipped through the net (Grant Holt for example) but for every James Vardy there's a 1000 Raphael Nades.

I do agree there's far too many average/poor foreigners plying their trade in the football league. I suppose it sounds more exciting signing a Francois Zoko than a John Smith..

Agree there won't be hundreds, but the natural progression used to be Conf - L2/1 - Champ/PL. That doesn't happen now as the top teams fill their squads with second rate Frenchmen, unknown Africans and Scandics who are nothing special. Chuck in the stockpiling of young players and it means that Championship Clubs look to get season loans with little outlay than take a gamble on a player from L1/2. Likewise L1/2 Clubs take Championship players on loan instead of looking at the Conference or lower.

Our own Tom Miller is proof there's decent players worth a go at the levels below. Steven Rigg last season...

When I was a lad clubs like Newcastle used to find good players in Scotland and Denmark. Now the only 'Scottish' players who seem to head south are Eastern Europeans like Artur Boruc. Just shows how third-rate Scottish football has become.

Look at any recent Scotland squad and it's a mixture of lower PL and mainly Championship players. Off the top of my head there's only Darren Fletcher who's had any impact at the business end of the Premier League in recent years.

Scottish Football needs completely overhauled, but that's for another thread!

"You have people getting into the ear of the clubs and telling them it’s a little bit more sophisticated, that there’s more science to it. They are baffling them with figures, statistics and pie charts!"

That sounds like dangerously close to heresy against The Book. Is Tim Sherwood FT?


Anyways, if it's beneficial for players to spend time in the lower leagues before making the step up, shouldn't it apply to managers too, rather than landing a big job straight away and getting sacked, like errr... Tim Sherwood?

I think the crapness of the team made Rigg look much better than he is, I fear it may be the same with Brough.
Now we have a team who can keep the ball and pass their shortfalls are being highlighted. Our improvement has left them behind, hopefully they can catch up.

orfc wrote:
He was part of the Spurs back room for several seasons before taking the job. When sacked he had the best win % of any Spurs boss in recent times!

m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/27389072

CCU wrote:

Lets not do that one of the few countries we are better than!!

CCU wrote:
Exactly, he could have spent those seasons managing Grimsthorpe Colliery in the Greggs Northern Feeder Division instead of wasting his time poncing about in the managers equivalent of an academy.

Andre Gray's taken a similar path to Vardy, promoted from the Confrence then moved to the Championship, talk of PL interest now.
Duncan Watmore looks a real prospect at Sunderland, they signed him from Altrincham.
George Boyd made a couple of big moves through the league's before making the PL, he played for Stevenage against us in the Confrence.