I was not surprised

"Our youngsters really need top class players to push them not Jorginho, Azpi Barkley Alonso and Willian. I fear they (the younger player) have only this season to prove it can work."


Yep, that's the difference and the crux of it.
Bayern young players have top-tier (impactful) seasoned pros to supplement them and conducive to their style of play.

We've got Barkley, Girooo, Rudi, Azpi, Alonso, Willian etc as our senior experienced players.
All of which are a handicap mish-mash to progression going forward. Their undesirable traits/limitations outweigh their strong points.

Time and time again these senior players letting us down whether that be from a leadership point of view, appalling decision-making or just not in sync with speed of play, when they should know and do better.
Detrimental knock-on effect on youngsters.


Personally not in the slightest bit interested in knee-jerk overreactions and fatuous statements regarding our young players (never have been, never will be), under the current circumstances.
Especially when they've been the main source of our successes (and will continue to be) this season, some will do well to remember that before lambasting or brainlessly directing expletives towards them.
Their dynamic contributions cannot be underestimated (against opposition of Bayern's quality), sorely missed tonight.

Probably wouldn't have got tonked had Pulisic and Callum been available (at optimal fitness)...alongside RJ on the same wavelength pinning back their fullbacks with overloads, interchanging and inflicting damage, would have been more competitive rather than being outclassed for large bits of the first half and all of the second half.


Before I forget...Kovacic was phenomenal. Can hold his head high.

I fear they (the younger player) have only this season to prove it can work.

I know we always find a way to recover from these downer seasons but I am really worried we might just go the way of Ac Milan if we dont get things right this summer.
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That was my predominant fear with hiring Lampard/going down this youth revolution route in the first place. The concept of the project in itself is fine, and we did have a dominant youth team for years so it made sense to utilize it, but we've been notoriously short sighted as a club since 2003 & this type of project you NEED to have patience - even more than the 'pretty football' experiments we run every so often.

A lot of fans talking about the need for a strong summer window, and I completely agree, but the biggest tell of how committed to this path we are will be (1) Lampard keeping his job even in the event we fail behind whatever standard targets we have, and (2) we buy in a manner that doesn't jeopardize the young players whether that be through to strong a competition for their place or leaving them with none at all.

Ziyech was a very good squad building purchase for this reason. Not only covers the RW slot Willian & Pedro will likely vacant next season but it gives the perfect type of competition to Mount at CAM - someone who offers things to the team he doesn't and vice versa. The striker signing needs to be handled with similar care, it's gotta be someone who can compete with Abraham but whose quality doesn't engulf him completely (e.g. someone like Werner might be too good).

Sancho's the interesting one. From a squad building POV the signing of Ziyech makes him an unbalanced addition, having three dynamic wingmen fighting for two positions is fine, four's pushing it a bit - someone's gunna stall. The key to making that transfer workable IMO would be sending CHO on loan.