Should QPR invest in younger players?

[ollyhoops]

..? or are you happy with who we signed. Should the transfer policy finally change and should we invest in some youngsters to build for the future? Thoughts?

[HoopDoggyDogg]

You need to have players with experience in the squad, but there needs to be a good scouting network to find the youth and sign them before any others get a sniff.
We need to look down in the lower leagues and take chances on some.
Look at Burnley, they had Charlie who became lethal for them.
They then lose him, but then replace him with Ings.
Burnley paid peanuts for both Austin and Ings.

[QPR Richard]

I guess you can count the new academy as an investment in youth. Hopefully it will attract a good crop of youngsters who can develop their potential, eventually moving on to the first team.

[Joon]

There needs to be long-term investment in youth, but to build next season's team around unproven, young players would be foolish.

[Hertford Hoop]

Its a balance between youth and experience but also having a good scouting network can pay dividends in the lower leagues

Too much empathise these days on having so called names... unfortunately those so called names don't play well in a Hooped shirt

[Yousef]

Should have a blend of experienced and young players. We always look for experienced players who have developed from other clubs. We need to have long term vision of step to step development of our young players and bring ones from lower leagues. We seem to be reluctant of give our young players chance in the first team and they end up moving to another club and develop such as Raheem Stirling. Now we have Hitchcock, Harriman, Shariff, etc. Hope they get their chance.

[SuperHoopNik]

YES build for the future. That's key for success. Should have bought more youngsters in and gave each of them a run in our current team this season.

[MattyRangers]

Our 3 defenders that finished the Reading game had a combined age of 105

[JuniorPower]

We've been saying this for ages, it just doesn't happen, Mark Hughes had a whole transfer window to bring in some young blood but instead he did his scouting at a retirement home.

[ollyhoops]

I watched Swansea last night and they were brilliant, they had a nice balance of youngsters and a couple more experienced players. In some ways it reminded me of Neil Warnocks QPR side, where he built a team around Tarrabt, Mackie, Smith, Derry and Hill.

Some people think we did ok with what we had this season, but others think Harry went a step too far with too many loans and too many old players, I myself don't think you can build a side like that as next season we have to start over again. We paid £4m for Philips which was a lot but to be fair you could say was an investment only time will tell.

Should the QPR policy change to improve our future or should short term buys be the best for the club for the forseeable future?

[FurtiveFox]

Our 3 defenders that finished the Reading game had a combined age of 105

Combined? You sure that wasn't each.

As others have said we need experience and bit of youth. However we have too much of former. The only younger players of note we have brought in are Phillips, Austin and Simpson and that is out of literally dozons of players we have signed over the last couple of years. Way too low a ratio and our own youngsters never get a look in. We need more balance.

[Norths]

On the subject of Swansea - is it true we had a deal lined up for shelvey as long as we stayed up last year? Would have been fantastic for us IMO.

On the subject of this thread - would love to see us target up and coming players from other clubs but the problem will always be the inflated fee's they demand.

[brightonr]

Combined? You sure that wasn't each.

As others have said we need experience and bit of youth. However we have too much of former. The only younger players of note we have brought in are Phillips, Austin and Simpson and that is out of literally dozons of players we have signed over the last couple of years. Way too low a ratio and our own youngsters never get a look in. We need more balance.

This is the issue. Thinking back to the early 80's, we had plenty of youngsters coming through. They were our own though and as such, were desperate to do well for Rangers. A few experienced old heads like Tony Currie and John Gregory to help them and the odd classy buy such as a Bannister or a Stainrod obviously helped.

There is no way in the world one of our managers back then would have brought in a list of former players and older experienced pros, as extensive as:

Hughes, Dunne, Nelsen, BAE, O'Neil, Carroll, Benayoun, Krancjar and Jenas.

Particularly when we already had senior pros such as:

Hill, Derry, Green, Zamora, Johnson, SWP and Young.

It's just far too many if you are having to rely on only them, which ultimately you are going to have to if you don't have the ability to work with and improve the large number of promising youngsers we have, resulting in not having the confidence to play them.

Goodness knows how the likes of Peter Hucker, Warren Neill, Ian Stewart, Ian Dawes, Dean Neal, Gary Micklewhite, Wayne Fereday, Clive Allen, Paul Goddard and others would have fared had we had such an ineffective first team coach who doesn't appear to have a clue about medium to long term planning.

Problem is, as many of us have known all along, running with such a flawed strategy means that now, we are under far more pressure than we needed to be to perform better and drastically improve.

Hopefully, we can see a very different strategy from now on, with the arrival of Morrison, who at least should offer a bit of dynamism, pace and talent.

[Shania]

Can we buy Morrison after his loan period ends?


I hope Harriman,Ehmer, Petrassi Hitchcook Return next year. that is a start.

[Kevin Mcleod]

Can we buy Morrison after his loan period ends?


I hope Harriman,Ehmer, Petrassi Hitchcook Return next year. that is a start.

Yep. Pretty sure its an 'option to buy'.