Jackie Jameson - wow now that is a blast from the past. Played against him once in LOI reserve football. Absolute legend of a player who IMHO would not have been out of place in Italian Serie A.Originally Posted by SkStu
Of the England squad out in Germany, six played in League Two at one stage or another (admittedly including the 3 x gk's); eight played on League One (incl some of those Lge Two'ers); while 19 played in the Championship (incl some of the Lge One/Two'ers).
Amongst the strikers, these include
Kane: Lge One - Orient; Championship - Leicester & Millwall;
Watkins: Lge Two - Exeter; Championship - Brentford;
Toney: Lge Two - Northampton; Lge One - Barnsley, Shrewsbury, Scunthorpe, Wigan & Peterboro; Championship - Brentford.
Dunno what that says about TP, but it suggests that lower leagues can still be a good proving ground for bigger and better things - if you've got what it takes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football...s/c9rr56pv97zo
Yep, good point. I guess though having been a senior footballer for a few years now, it's time to start kicking on. To be fair. he's had a good season so maybe this is the start of him really showing he has what it takes
Folding my way into the big money!!!
Seems to be different stories on the fee with the English side reporting €8m and the Dutch side saying €4m. Probably €4m with add ons or something, I don't think he's done enough to commend an €8m fee. Great move for him though, and if he starts banging them in for AZ there will be bigger clubs taking an interest quickly.
If he was from a Nordic country or Serbia (for some reason) his transfermarkt value would automatically increase to 8M as soon as he signs for AZ...sadly he's not so I suspect it'll stay at 4.5M (maybe they'll bump it up to 5 if their lucky).
Lower leagues certainly can be, but I think the point is just that other places can be too. Sancho, Bellingham (and maybe others?) did well by getting high level experience abroad.
I think it’s more of a numbers game with England too. They can afford to have their players gain experience in English lower leagues. Some will succeed, many won’t. They have many prospects and don’t need a high success rate. We have much fewer prospects and need a higher success rate.
I wonder how many England U19s or U21s who at some stage in their careers might have been seen as likely internationals (maybe even Cannon or Delap) never got beyond L1, Championship.
I think you need to look at where some of the more impressive Tier 2 performers at the Euros play and it shows that there’s real diversity in where they play club football.
So maybe it’s unfair and a bit cliched to say “kill themselves in the Championship” but equally I think it’s fair to expect that a country like ours could expect better outcomes if there was a bit more diversity in what leagues they play in.
It's a good move really. Can argue about the merits of the Dutch league versus, for example, the Championship but it is a step upwards for a chunky enough fee that Spurs probably wouldn't have extracted from anyone last summer. Hopefully the environment is right for him to develop and thrive. He only turned 22 in February.
Sancho and Bellingham went to an elite, Champions League quality team. I don't think anybody would have a problem with out players moving to Dortmund.
Moving to Dortmund is a lot different than moving to a midtable Dutch or Belgian team. These leagues are very top heavy.
Yep - Afolabi, like Parrott, also moved to a side that ended up relegated from a Benelux league and the move hasn't worked out for him. Okoflex hasn't set the world alight in Switzerland. Abankwah has effectively failed to make it in Italy. I think you can read too much into a player just moving abroad.
You can argue Parrott dropped down a bit from Championship level (where he had clearly struggled at Preston), used that drop to finally find his feet in senior ball, and will hopefully now kick on from it. I think dropping a level rather than moving abroad is the bigger help. Similar to Idah I guess.
It seems a very good move for him, and that's the main thing.
I think the Championship v European leagues thing is massively overblown. I saw people recently on twitter saying that the amount of players in the Euros at European leagues Vs the number of players from the Championship proves how much better it is for Irish players to be playing in Europe. But those numbers are just down to geography - obviously there aren't going to be tons of Slovenian and Slovakian lads playing in the Championship, it doesn't mean the league isn't good, it's just that it's largely compromised of British and Irish players.
Different players suit different leagues. Parrott is clearly more suited to the Dutch league than the Championship. Jason Knight's style of play probably suits English football better. Josh Cullen proved that he can do it both in the Championship and in a continental league. As long as the league is of a decent standard, be it in Britain or in continental Europe - or maybe in Ireland some day in the future, the main thing is that they're playing regularly.
I'm not sure it's right to say Parrott is more suited to the Dutch league than the Championship - he was 18 when he went to Millwall (didn't work out) and 20 when he moved to Preston. He's 22 now and those four years are big in development terms.
Agree with the rest of your post though.
Of course, but for me the Q is more whether a player goes to the standard / environment that's most appropriate for his stage of development. The problem is there's no real counterfactual - only subjective opinion. Would Bellingham have been better off at Dortmund or Man United or Villa? We can't tell, but we can tell Dortmund was good for him. Likewise going Dutch has clearly been good for Parrott.
Bellingham would have been brilliant wherever he went. He ripped up the championship at 16/17. He is several levels above parrott and the other irish players people dont think the championsip suits. Parrott wasn't good enough at 18/19 to play in the championship, that was the simple problem there. He'd probably do fine there now but this is a good move for him.
I know it doesn't match up to informed analysis, but googling reveals the following.
AZ play in a modern (2006) stadium of 19.5k capacity in a city of 110k people. Last season they finished 4th in the Eredivisie, a long way behind PSV and Feyenoord, against whom they lost all four league games. (They also lost to Feyenoord in the 3rd round of the Cup, after two wins against lowly opponents). Behind them in 5th were Ajax, who have been going through a terrible time.
In Europa Conference qualifying, they overcame an Andorran side easily enough, then just beat Brann Bergen via two draws and a penalty shootout, which got them to the group stage, with A.Villa, Legia W and Z Mostar. They beat Legia and Mostar both 1-0 at home, but lost their other 4 games.
They sacked their (Dutch) manager in January, replacing him with the Belgian Marten Maartens. Their leading goalscorer was the Greek Pavlidis (33 goals), whom they had bought from Willem II for €2.5m in 2021, and after scoring loads of goals, sold him in the summer to Benfica for €20m, incl add-ons.
It seems clear that they're hoping to pull off the same trick with Troy - I wonder have Spurs got a sell-on clause, or a buy-back agreement? If so, it would suggest they rate his chances of doing something similar to Pavlidis.
More generally, though, I think the Eredivie is closer to Scotland's SPL than the EFL Championship. Granted their top three (two currently) are better than the Old Firm, while their next level may be a bit better than their Scottish counterparts.
But with 18* teams versus the Championship's 24, and the Dutch 3rd tier and below being Amateur, I don't think the Eredivisie can have the same competitive depth as the Championship, even if their top 2 or 3 teams could survive comfortably in the EPL.
* - One of those 18, Vitesse, finished bottom last season with just 6 points after having 18 points deducted for breaching their Licensing conditions (finances, basically) - though 24 points wouldn't have saved them anyhow. And now they look like being thrown out of the League entirely, since they don't have the money to renew their Licence to play next season in the Eerste Divisie.
Following the departure of Vangelis Pavlidis for Benfica, Parrott will be the senior citizen in the AZ attack, according to www.getfootballnewsbene.com
"The attacking lineup at AZ currently consists of the likes of Lequincio Zeefuik (19), Mexx Meerdink (20) and Ernest Poku (20)".
Best of luck to Parrott - I hope he blossoms and reaches the potential that we could all see when he was a teenager.
Too soon to be included in the team for today's friendly against his old club Excelsior, but may make his debut next week against Afolabi's Kortrijk instead.
Looking forward to seeing how this move goes.
Well done and fair play to him. He had a lot of negativity but has seemed to work hard to turn things around. A player who potentially is best suited for us as the deeper front link player in a 442 or a 532
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