Fair play to him, he seems to have a philosophy and he’s sticking with it.
You have to commend it in a way, someone sticking to their guns like that, now it’s just a case of turning that into results when it matters.
With Conor Masterson being very much the man of the hour in West London now, it looks as if he’s not the only young prospect that is in the mind of QPR boss Mark Warburton. Speaking ahead of this weekend’s game with Huddersfield Town, Warburton spoke about the club’s overall use of young talent this campaign:
“What we’re doing is we’re working with our young players and there’s some really talented young boys on the pitch. We’ve kept our young talents as well and our senior players are working really hard on and off the pitch in a mentoring capacity. I hope the genuine fans can see a lot of work being done by the players. There’s a lot of young talent working really hard with the senior boys and I hope very much the crowd can see that.”
Is it me, or does he sound like he’s asking for forgiveness or patience? Or perhaps a combination of the two?
Whilst I have been somewhat harsh on Warburton at stages this season, which I still think was thoroughly deserved, I will have to say that he has done a good job with the young players by building the team around the likes of Bright Osayi-Samuel, Eberechi Eze, Ilias Chair and the aforementioned Masterson, all of whom are under the age of 23 to name but a few.
It a way of laying the foundations for the future years. Whilst the likes of Eze and Osayi-Samuel have attracted attention from elsewhere, if he can somehow convince then to stay at the club, then we really have a chance to build something for many years to come, with players getting used to each other and acting as a cohesive unit.
Where would you rather talented youngsters be
The U23 side
Out on loan
So he probably deserves a little bit of leeway when it comes to this methodology, sacrificing results today to set things up for the long-term, but at the same time if results get too disastrous whilst he’s doing this, then it might be time to try a different strategy.
