Lyttle’s assertion that he will give youth a chance a good omen
ANYONE who has watched Sligo Rovers over the past number of months would be able to tell you that bodies are needed in the transfer window this summer..
Gerard Lyttle alluded to it in his post- match comments on Friday night.
One comment of his in particular which stood out for me was the following: “We have to develop our own players. To bring players over from England and Scotland and to develop them for other teams, I don’t see the sense in that.
“We’ll obviously bring one or two players in and they could be young players but they’d have to be better than what our young lads are.”
And he is spot on. As a soccer town, we should have young, local players coming through to the senior team on a regular basis.
What is the point in the club pumping big money into our underage structure, in the form of Under 15s, 17s and 19s teams when these players are not given a chance at a higher level?
It’s difficult for some young players to make the leap to senior football from Under 19s, and with no reserve league or Under 21 league, most get lost in limbo as some manager tries to decide whether they will be worth a go in a senior team or not.
No- one expects eight or nine players a year to be graduating to the senior squad but even one, maybe two, would be a huge asset to the club.
Different managers see different things in different players. That’s the way it is.
But there is an element of truth in what Lyttle is saying about bringing players over from England.
You look at the likes of Mathew Stevens and Janaai Gordon from the last 12 months alone.
Neither ever really settled into the league. And they’re two young players in fairness.
But why bring young lads over who need time to settle into the league, when we have our own sitting in the U19s squad, already familiar with the league and its workings?
We have, in Gerard Lyttle, a manager who is willing to put time and effort into ensuring that young players with potential are given the chance that they need.
And you could see that on Friday night, starting Mikey Place and bringing Martin Walsh on as a sub.
Not an easy game for either of them to come into, and both applied themselves well.
That’s what people want to see. There’s always a cry from fans to the tune of ‘ locals aren’t given a chance’, and I’m not sure where they’re from has anything to do with it, but when we have players at our disposal we may as well at least try and use them.
Whether they’re good enough or not is a different story, and that usually becomes clear pretty soon. But at least if they’re given a chance of some description there won’t be the same outcry from fans.
We’ve heard a lot over the last season and a half about lads not getting the chance they deserve,
We’ve seen promising young local players Ross Taheny and Gary Armstrong ( on loan) plying their trade up north with Ballinamallard, much to the annoyance of a lot of fans last season, and for the first half of this season when we desperately needed bodies.
We don’t have the same budgets as top teams in the league and attracting players to Sligo can be difficult. Developing our own to be first team players eventually is the aim.
That’s what Sligo Rovers should be about, Gerard Lyttle is right.
It would be impossible to have a squad totally built up of graduates from the underage system, but three or four would be ideal and that’s what fans what to see.
This was something highlighted by the club too in their Strategic Plan. When money is being pumped into underage teams, we want to be able to see the fruits of that work. Hopefully we will in the coming years.
On Friday night’s game against St. Patrick’s Athletic, it’s been a long time since I felt so enthused after a 1- 1 draw but the second half performance from Rovers was incredibly encouraging and there were plenty of positives to take, even with a severely depleted squad.
That point against Pats meant that Rovers remained in the bottom three over the weekend but merely on goal difference.
As is the norm, the outstanding Kieran Sadlier was the talk of the town after he lit up Richmond Park on Friday evening.
He truly is a joy to watch and we can count our lucky stars we get to see him play in the Rovers jersey every week.
There is work to be done, and everyone knows this squad has its limitations.
But I’m encouraged after Friday night and that’s all it takes to get people interested again after a dismal start to the season.
Our performance thankfully wasn’t impacted by the now infamous incident involving players, which received coverage in national media over the weekend.
It’s never nice to see the club receive negative publicity but it has now been dealt with and we can all move on from it now.
There’s never a dull day following the League of Ireland, and we wouldn’t have it any other way, I don’t think.