Looking at Tyler Walker's career to date, it seems like most of his time as a Pro has been out on loan. Not sure if this is a good sign for us.
It has made me think, though, how this seems to be the career path of a lot of players these days. Most times signed to a Premiership or Championship club but not really ever able to quite make the grade so constantly out on loan. Must be a strange existence, never able to really fully be part of a club or team.
I hope Walker bangs in loads of goals and proves to be a good signing but I am concerned that our 2 strikers are both players who spend their whole time on loan.
Try before you buy.
Works for me.
I think that the Loan system is at the root of the problem.
Clubs, especially in The Premiership but increasingly The Championship as well, just hoover up young talent and farms it out if they can’t make their minds up about them or the player has a lot of time on his contract and the club taking them on will pay either all or a good portion of their wages anyway.
It’s a cheap and easy way to ‘audition’ potential talent and maybe see them develop into players who can be assimilated into their greater squad or sold on to recover costs or even at a profit.
For the clubs taking on the loaners, it’s a lazy and allegedly cheap way of boosting their squads and goes a long, long way towards avoiding having to have a properly funded and forward looking development regime.
I say cheap because I don’t believe that taking on the sort of low quality loan players on offer to lower league clubs will ever be a substitute for bringing on your own talent.
In the short term, it’s much cheaper of course, and with only 6 or 12 month term commitment, if the loan player turns out to be duff, no worries (no Marquis’s). Of course, if the loan player is any good he’s quickly gone and youhave nothing to show in the longer term.
How many really decent loan players have we had in the last 5 seasons ? How man no-hopers ? In that same period how many really good youngsters have we brought on ?
The Loan System can benefit all parties if used correctly. The player gains more experience, the Owning Club get to see how the player develops in a match environment & the loanee club gets to acquire some very good players before they make it & can't afford to buy. Basically, it helps to find the level of the player.