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Premier League Experience - Required or Overrated?


Saint Charlie
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Our current squad is light on meaningful Prem experience, I know a few players have played there but fleeting rather than the norm.

 

Massive fan of our recruitment policy of young hungry players, very much the way to go. Jay Rodriguez is a fantastic start to the summer and I'm sure there will be more where that came from.

 

In addition, would anyone like to see perhaps one more experienced player come in?

 

The likes of Danny Murphy and Matt Upson have been mentioned and I don't mean specifically them but is Premier League experience important to have within the squad or overrated?

 

I think the right player could really help some of our young players, perhaps a centre back or central midfield player (doesn't have to be a 90mins every game player or even very old but just know what the League is about).

 

I certainly wouldn't swap our squad for West Hams but they will probably have close to 2000 Prem games between them whereas we might scrape 100?

Edited by Saint Charlie
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Over rated - look what happebned the last tiem we recruited Premier League experience!

Players are together - the individuals may not be world class, but we all pull together and get the job done. More good players to join in the next few weeks and we will still be favourites to go down as we haven't signed a world class name...who needs them? I know expectations will be on a top two finish again, but I think that might just be too much to ask first time around.

Didn't Forest win League 1 after being promoted from League 2 back in the 70's/80's? Never say never!

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Some prem experience wouldn't go a miss, and someone like murphy would be a great signing to add that.

 

However, if a player is good enough then it shouldn't matter all that much. Players come from all over the place and show that they can do a job in the prem.

 

A winning and strong mentality is more important IMO and I think our squad has that.

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Fox, Cork, Davis and Chaplow all have some limited experience of the Prem but I was thinking more of someone who has played a lot of games there or indeed in another top European league.

 

Hooliveld, Fonte, Butterfield?

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Danny Fox?

 

 

 

He said "over rated" so I think he was suggested something bad had happened the last time we intentionally signed players with lots of Prem experience. Struggling to understand what and when he means.

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One thing we haven't talked about much is the role of club/team captain, and this is where I think we could do with someone with some decent experience of the Premier league.

 

There were times when we lacked "an old head" last season, even when Hammond was playing, and I think it will be more costly next season unless we resolve it.

 

I don't think it can be Kelvin - partly because he's too removed from the action, partly because he's likely to have his hands full with his GK duties, and partly because he's no certainty to start and end the season as first choice.

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"Premiership experience" has never made any sense to me. A game of football is a game of football at any level, there isn't different formulas for winning games in different divisions.

Experience makes a difference when you refer to specific situations - cup runs, relegation battles, promotion/title chases. But player A won't necessarily be better than player B just because he's got a few more years experience of playing in the Prem if he was always in a midtable side.

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I keep coming back to Mark Davies from Bolton and Jamie O'Hara.

 

O'Hara seems to enjoy being the "saviour" of a struggling team. Not sure he'd fit in with our group.

Davies is a great shout though. Holden as mentioned above is another - but his fitness would be a doubt for me.

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I keep coming back to him but I don't know whether he has enough left as a player, and the last thing we need is someone coming here as the start of their easy transition to retirement.

 

An intelligent player who passes the ball well but he's not what we need in midfield. We need pace and someone that can get ahead of the forwards on occasion and back again.

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It's an interesting debate. Good players win you games, it doesn't matter if they have 'premiership' experience or not in my opinion. Momentum is also very important for a newly promoted team.

 

When we were in the premiership (or the championship for that matter) I always wanted to avoid newly promoted teams in the first few games, because you know they'll carry on with a 'bounce' from the season before and you take advantage of that 'bounce'' effect by keeping the squad similar, no wholesale changes.

 

The thing I love about our squad is that it's young, hungry and motivated. There aren't any prima-dona guys in the squad, there aren't any former premiership players on mega-bucks - none of that. We've got players like Morgan, Lallana, Rodriguez, Cork...etc etc. All young and talented enough to make the step up without much of a problem in my opinion, and I'd hate to disrupt that group by signing 'premiership experience' on wages that would most likely be more than those guys are on. It didn't exactly go to plan for QPR at the end of the day.

 

I like our transfer policy as it's quite clearly about building a spine of young players who can play together for years to come, that's why I can never see us signing players like Owen or Yakubu - I'm not saying they're bad players, they just don't fit what we're trying to do at Southampton.

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O'Hara seems to enjoy being the "saviour" of a struggling team. Not sure he'd fit in with our group.

Davies is a great shout though. Holden as mentioned above is another - but his fitness would be a doubt for me.

 

I think Davies only has a year left on his contract as well so should be available at a decent price.

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O'Hara seems to enjoy being the "saviour" of a struggling team. Not sure he'd fit in with our group.

Davies is a great shout though. Holden as mentioned above is another - but his fitness would be a doubt for me.

 

Davies is exactly the sort of player I can imagine we'd be after. Alan Nixon is a Bolton fan and he said Davies isn't leaving this year for any fee...so make of that what you will. Seems a bit random seeing as they'd lose him for zilch if they don't go up. (or maybe even if they do)

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An intelligent player who passes the ball well but he's not what we need in midfield. We need pace and someone that can get ahead of the forwards on occasion and back again.

 

What we need is dependent on how we plan to use Schneiderlin IMO. He spent a lot of late-season time playing in front of the back four, which made it more difficult for him to be the "playmaker" he has the capability to be. But if he's to play farther forward he needs to improve significantly on his finishing.

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What we need is dependent on how we plan to use Schneiderlin IMO. He spent a lot of late-season time playing in front of the back four, which made it more difficult for him to be the "playmaker" he has the capability to be. But if he's to play farther forward he needs to improve significantly on his finishing.

 

Always rated Schneiderlin. He could definitely play further forward but that would mean getting someone to play the holding role and he isn't in any case the pacy midfielder I had in mind. The alternative is to get pace at right midfield which is what I think we'll buy.

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Last year we talked about Championship experience being required for promotion. Who were our best players? Rickie, Jos, Lallana and Morgan IMO. The first 2 had never played in the Champ before, the latter 2 had a season each in the Dutch disaster, which you can't count as decent Championship experience.

 

If you're good enough, you can beat anyone. Buying Premier League experience can land you with Joey Barton, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Kieron Dyer, so be careful what you wish for.

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I think having players who know how to react in situations where they find themselves overmatched is essential in the Prem. It's great having hungry and enthusiastic players who have a genuine freshness and enthusiasm, but sometimes you need players who have played enough matches of that type to be able to help the others make the right decisions on when to press or stand off, when to show inside, or how the flying fcvk you stop Aguero turning you inside out for the 20th time. It takes a very cool young head to deal with some of the most difficult situations faced against the top teams and not lose faith in your own ability.

 

That being said, there's no benefit to signing has-beens who can't back it up either, not for the playing staff anyway.

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Our current squad is light on meaningful Prem experience, I know a few players have played there but fleeting rather than the norm.

 

Massive fan of our recruitment policy of young hungry players, very much the way to go. Jay Rodriguez is a fantastic start to the summer and I'm sure there will be more where that came from.

 

In addition, would anyone like to see perhaps one more experienced player come in?

 

The likes of Danny Murphy and Matt Upson have been mentioned and I don't mean specifically them but is Premier League experience important to have within the squad or overrated?

 

I think the right player could really help some of our young players, perhaps a centre back or central midfield player (doesn't have to be a 90mins every game player or even very old but just know what the League is about).

 

I certainly wouldn't swap our squad for West Hams but they will probably have close to 2000 Prem games between them whereas we might scrape 100?

 

Exactly right we need more experienced prem players in the squad. I know Swansea and Norwich did great last season but that tends to be the exception also whilst not proposing the QPR approach they did stay up. So more experience to combine with hungry young players is my belief.

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Exactly right we need more experienced prem players in the squad. I know Swansea and Norwich did great last season but that tends to be the exception also whilst not proposing the QPR approach they did stay up. So more experience to combine with hungry young players is my belief.

 

Why?

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but fleeting rather than the norm.

........would anyone like to see perhaps one more experienced player come in?

 

........is Premier League experience important to have within the squad or overrated?

 

I think the right player could really help some of our young players, perhaps a centre back or central midfield player (doesn't have to be a 90mins every game player or even very old but just know what the League is about).

 

When did Norm play in the Prem.? (joke)

.... but as for your various points...

Of course, signing good /seasoned proffs. with prev. experience is desireable. Recalling Ted Bates bought in ex Everton hero Jimmy Gabriel who was so versatile and held the team together by successfully playing in various roles in the late 60's, and of course Lawrie Mac did this many times over when bringing in the likes of Alan Ball when Steve Williams was still a teenage starlet, and goal poacher Steve Moran blossomed playing alongside Kevin Keegan (who wouldn't ?).

An overview of those famous McMemeny signings speaks for itself, and the mention of a side with FIVE England captains in it surely proves the point, even though most of them were nearing the end of their careers. Later on ex Liverpool Jimmy Case was the catalyst for Chris Nicholl's teams in a later management period.

 

But every team has to field eleven players and it has to be said that in some teams they are there to make up the numbers and never really establish themselves as good Prem. standard players. So it depends WHO you are talking about. A top player with 300-odd games or 20+ caps, can be a definite asset, whereas someone else who is a misfit, or who has an attitude or a bad injury record could become a liability.

Edited by david in sweden
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