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Bringing in youth can only get you so far unless changes are made – Opinion

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I don’t think we can start talking about ‘The Class of 19-20’ in the same way other people talk about ‘The Class of 92’ yet, but at least we’re starting somewhere.

Whilst performances on the pitch have been a bit hit and miss, although you can’t really blame him for Aro Muric’s errors against West Brom, it seems as if Sabri Lamouchi has finally managed to get his style and identity embedded into the club, and the fans have been on board with that ever since the early stages of pre-season.

One of the things he looks to be building a foundation on is youth, and that was evidenced on Tuesday night against Fleetwood.

Not only did he give defender Joe Worrall the captain’s armband, despite being one of the younger members of the team at 22-years-old, he also gave a debut to 18-year-old Darren Johnson, son of former Red, David.

Speaking after the Fleetwood game, the young Welshman said:

“As soon as the new coach came in you could see he had faith in the youth. If I came into the team at the end of last season, not really training that much, I think I would have found it harder. So just from the pre-season games and training with good players it makes it a lot easier and makes me feel more calm when I get the chance.”

Whilst it possible that young players might get chances to play this season, there is one thing standing in their way, and that’s the elder statesmen in front of them. It’s been well documented that there are players who have no future with the club, but with this new breed of youngsters possibly on the verge of coming through, it’s now more important than ever to get them out.

Whilst the squad is still quite large as it stands, hopefully it will be trimmed down in the coming days with the international and lower league windows still to close. I just hope when the time comes to bolster the squad again, Lamouchi carries on his philosophy and rather than going abroad to bring someone in, he should carry on looking much closer to home.

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