Callum Lang

The big clubs will always sweep up the best of young talent. Always have done and always will do. To a parent or the child themselves who would they sign for or play for Utd City Liverpool Everton or Rochdale Oldham Tranmere Southport??
It’s a pecking order and at the bottom you get the leftovers. It isn’t like Latics staff are poor with what they have. Far from it they are as good or better than anyone else but they can only work with what they have.
Put the free season tickets, back handers, kit, boots, signed posters etc along with the glamour, prestige and facilities it’s quite easy to see why there is a pecking order.
When we are back in the greed league we will be higher up that order.
As for Callum Lang, well he is a Latics player, so if the Toffees want him let’s see the colour of their money and slap the monopolising gets with a massive valuation or sell on clause.

I once signed a lad on fifa who was pretty good. Didnt ring anyone though.

I know a,better idea, lets stick him on the bench then ease him into our side, pitch in with say 5-10 goals and keep us in the Championship for more than one,season.
As for someone saying “Everton snap up young players so other team cant have them”. Seriously , your saying Everton want Lang, a player that can’t get into a League one side so others cant have him ??.
If Everton saw something at Morecambe then someone at Latics is clueless and needs fookin sacking.
Bring him back, let him train and slowly introduce him in from the bench and cup games like we use to do or just scrap all youth sides altogether[/quote]

Or maybe the story is just bollocks – invented by his agent as a ploy to get an improved deal from Latics.
I seem to remember similar stories doing the rounds above that Rakesh Bingham several years ago with the likes of Liverpool and Uniex allegedly interested. He got a new deal & found his way to Hamilton Academical’s after unsuccessful stints with Mansfield and Hartlepool.

If he’s good enough, he’ll get picked at Latics and judging by some of the crap we’ve had on loan from Everton, they’re not the best judge of young players!!

There have been several good points made on this thread and Tilders point about agents spreading rumours could be spot on. With the amount of money involved in football anything can happen. Rules are one thing but money and other back handers can easily persuade parents of under twelves to make a decision whatever the rules if they can be formally or informally signed or not. This includes overseas kids too.
I worked with a former Rovers player who went right through their development system only to be shown the door when he was on the verge of first team football only to be pushed out by Souness bringing his own posse of young players down from Scotland.
I now work with a bloke who has two lads under 12 involved with professional clubs in the North West (one Greed League) and clubs have tried all sorts of tactics to pin them down to pre-contract agreements.
While there are un-holy amounts of money there will always be ways around anything.

Nah – for me a player needs to be playing 1st team football to develop.
James McCarthy had the right idea – when at Hamilton he had all the big English clubs chasing him & he turned them down saying that he would learn more playing for Hamilton every week than he would rotting in the reserves for several years at Liverpool or Arsenal. Even when he decided the time was right for the step up he chose between us & Wolves as he felt 1st team football was more likely at us. And then on top of that he had chances to leave before he did but only eventually went when he felt he’d developed enough to get 1st team football at a “bigger” club.

If he’d gone to Liverpool when breaking into Hamilton’s team he’d have spent years in the reserves being cocooned in a pampered world, not playing competitive football & not developing the nouse & drive to succeed & when they booted him out he wouldn’t have been good enough & too old to be “showing promise”
Nick Powell would have been far better off staying at Crewe or moving to a middling team than spending years being shut out at United

We’ve had loads of loan players from the big clubs over the last few years & I know many of them have been really highly rated by their parent clubs but stick em in the big bad world of professional lower league football & most of them have floundered.

Same with Lang – if Cook thinks he’s good enough now then by all means get him in every match day squad. If he thinks that he isn’t quite ready then loan him out for the season to a club where he’s likely to play week in, week out and watch him regularly to see how he develops.
Its far better for his development than just training every day & playing friendlies

Its all down to money at the end of the day.

We have been very lucky for many years now to be able to go out and buy or loan players who are better than players we are developing.

When you are completely skint or on a very tight budget you have to go for the cheaper option and play your devloping younsters. It looks good on paper, is good for the youngsters, but invariably doesn’t get the immediate results that are required these days.

Crewe have always developed their youngsters well, and have sold on a few, but overall have achieved bugger all. Would you all have rather had their success or ours over the last 20 years?

Callum Lang is not a kid anymore and if he is good enough now, then Cook should keep him here, if he feels he is not ready for the step up, I don’t think he will ever be, so get shut and get someone in who is good enough. I
t may sound harsh, but you get points for wins, not developing your own players.

Developing your own younsters at the end of the day saves you money, but in real terms costs you a fortune if they are sub standard, the club would at best tread water, or worse be in the doldrums with Crewe if it weren’t for being able to pay for better players.

They had to split up Reece Burke and Reece James for just that reason, or was it Reece Burke and Luke Burke? I’m surprised that Byrne and Burn have been allowed to stay in the same team, too. It’s a commentator’s nightmare, although they are fairly easy to tell apart.