Will our kids play a bigger part next season?

Shane will surely play a bigger part next season.
With all of the talk and speculation on the transfer front at the moment, which is understandable I may add, it is kind of easy to forget about other aspects of the club.

The aspect I’m going to focus on in this article, as you may have guessed by the title, is the youth aspect. It’s an interesting subject that pretty much everyone has an opinion on, but with the club putting so much effort into their youth setup it kind of leaves me wondering just when we’ll start to reap the rewards of developing our own players. We’ve done it with Andy Carroll in recent years, but who is going to be the next one, or two, or three even, to make the step up to the first team?

Well I guess the obvious one has to be Shane Ferguson. Towards the back end of last season we saw him get more minutes on the pitch, and he didn’t let us down! We saw pace, technical ability and intelligence from the young lad from Northern Ireland as he put in a string of superb performances. Left-back or left-wing – you decide, but young Fergie is equally adept at playing both positions. I expect to see more of him next season.

Michael Richardson is highly-rated at NUFC, so perhaps he could be in with a shout? I very much doubt he will get thrown in at the deep end, although I do expect that we’ll see a bit more of him next season, either in the league as a late sub at some point or in the early rounds of the Carling Cup providing circumstances allow.

How about Phil Airey? The lad has been prolific for the reserves, even if he does look a bit waif. He made his debut last season in that horrible game against Stevenage, but I expect we’ll see more of him again next season especially with Nile Ranger seemingly heading for the St James’ Park exit door.

Another two who really should be making their mark on the first team next year are Haris Vuckic and Tamas Kadar. I really feel for these two lads as I feel that their formative years have been ruined by serious injuries. Both players have suffered broken legs and other niggles, but both have undoubted talent and will no doubt show that in time.

Tim Krul isn’t really a kid as such, although in goalkeeping terms he is. Krul is now a full international and my money is on the Dutchman to be our No1 next season. Believe it or not, but it’s been five years since Krul joined us as a starry-eyed youngster, but now could be his time to shine.

I’ll be honest, I really thought I would struggle to write this article and I only had a bash at it because I know some of you guys like talking about our youngsters. In actual fact I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to write, and how easy it was to think of players who are coming through our academy that could end up getting a chance in the first team in the very near future. In fact I’ve probably missed a few!

So how about that for something positive eh? I’m not saying that we should throw them all in now and have a team full of youngsters – Ossie Ardilles tried it through necessity and it very nearly backfired on us. However there is nothing to say that we can’t play one or two here and there to give them some experience and see if they really can make the grade.

This youth setup could be about to start paying us back!

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

169 thoughts on “Will our kids play a bigger part next season?

  1. I wouldn’t mind seeing lualua have the odd first team appearance next season. Like you said Toonsy there are alot of cracking youngsters coming through hopefully they will all keep progressing. I have said this before but I really hope we keep Ranger I still think he has alot of potential but if he has done something serious that we don’t know about then we might be better off without him. Hopefully not the case and we keep the lad and he progresses and develops his finishing ability.

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  2. Steve, I would prefer we give Airey his chances. He seems a lot more focused and motivated on football than Ranger. It’s been said about other players that if they don’t want to be here, then we don’t want them. Ranger doesn’t really care about football, so why have him at our club? He’s never going to develop.

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  3. I am a fan of Kaz too, reckon he needs to beef up a bit for the prem, as does young fergie.

    Steak and Milk diet!

    Kaz and Fergie should get their chances down the wings IMO, both potentially excellent players

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  4. Andrew,

    My worry with him as well is that we invest time and effort into him, give him the game time over someone like Airey and he throws it back in our face.

    just comes across as the wrong sort of character you want around the place 😕

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  5. I agree moreno Ranger should be got rid of asap , i am all for giving people a second chance but i have a feeling that our gangster/rapper friend will never learn .

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  6. The youngster i would like to see be giving some playing time next season is Kadar i have a feeling that that lad will step up to the level required .

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  7. From what we’ve seen of Kadar, i think he’s good enough. Vuckic has been hit and miss but probably should go on loan. Fergie is good enough in my opinion, Tavernier and Richardson have a chance if they impress, same for Donaldson.

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  8. So i think we’re all in agreement that Airey should get to play, or actually get put on loan, probably league 1 side for this first half of the season and see how he does. Loan him to Huddersfield or hartlepool, whoever want him the most.
    If we only bring one winger in this summer, I would keep Kaz in the team to come on as a useful sub and perhaps even start if fitness calls for it.
    Fergie obviously has the talent, but maybe a little regular time with a Championship club who would play him at left wing or fullback, wherever Pardew wants him to focus on I guess. Let the lad just explode down there and get his confidence soaring!
    And Axel, i agree with you that Kadar could definitely make the step into th Premier league

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  9. Vuckic definitely needs the time on loan. If we keep Nolan, there will really be no place for him in our set up. Send him somewhere he’ll get the regular appearances in the role that he’s best at

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  10. In my opion the money we got for carrol i would of wanted double that.2 years time i think that 35 mil they paid for carrol will look cheap.

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