Jamie Knight-Lebel

[Bigandy]

4 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

We may be theoretically deep at CB, but I would argue it is still our weakest position.  Especially unless/until LSF and JKL take the next step up and commit to Canada, the expanding pool of players is still one that doesn’t inspire confidence when facing the calibre we are now hoping to compete with.   

I would say Cam is our weakest position as its only oso or hoilett out of position for 60 min max. However you could say that if davies is unavailable, we have adekugbe, edwards and an out of position laryea who may already be playing on the right. miller is close to adekugbe, cornleius near laryea, vitoria better than edwards. Then add in JKL and LDF once they commit and have minutes and theyll be an entire level higher than lb. 

[Bigandy]

8 minutes ago, costarg said:

You're right about wingers, we can't get that deep. 

For CB's we'd probably be relatively excited about guys at similar levels to Raposo, JMR and Fraser.  That would make 15 mids, to be honest, I'm not very strong at following the fringe level players.  Not too sure how much those guys actually played this year.  Would a CB with Rusty's profile be considered an option?  Tonnes of experience and keep it simple kind of guy.

 

Good shout on fraser as I forgot him. Raposo and JMR arent really Centermids although does anyone know where we put JMR?. we could theoretically add bombito hoilett and nelson to the CM list as well but i think that putting players in multiple spots defeats the purpose of the exercise.  Colyn could also be a bit of a shout. 

I think in 2-3 years CM will kind of burst out like we are seeing this year with CB.

Zouhir, pelligriono, dias, smith, costa, sali? Sigur?, saliba, JMR?

[dyslexic nam]

8 minutes ago, Bigandy said:

I would say Cam is our weakest position as its only oso or hoilett out of position for 60 min max. However you could say that if davies is unavailable, we have adekugbe, edwards and an out of position laryea who may already be playing on the right. miller is close to adekugbe, cornleius near laryea, vitoria better than edwards. Then add in JKL and LDF once they commit and have minutes and theyll be an entire level higher than lb. 

For me there are options that allow us to adjust for the CAM issue better.  David could drop back a bit and leave Larin as the leading man.  Kone seems like he has good offensive capabilities.   Hell, I still think a guy like Nelson could player there even though he continues to be used as a winger at club level.   (and that isn’t even considering repurposing Staq into an attacking role and leaving CDM to a destroyer like Piette).

And it’s not like we need the same depth at CAM - it is a single position and only really a dedicated attacker in some formations.  Every formation we use will require either 2 or 3 CBs, so you need a lot more quality in depth to ensure competitiveness.  And maybe I am undervaluaing just how specialized a CAM is, but I don’t see the kind of personnel flexibility at CB.   You just need them - and they need to be good enough to compete with high level attackers.  

  

[Bigandy]

2 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

For me there are options that allow us to adjust for the CAM issue better.  David could drop back a bit and leave Larin as the leading man.  Kone seems like he has good offensive capabilities.   Hell, I still think a guy like Nelson could player there even though he continues to be used as a winger at club level.   (and that isn’t even considering repurposing Staq into an attacking role and leaving CDM to a destroyer like Piette).

And it’s not like we need the same depth at CAM - it is a single position and only really a dedicated attacker in some formations.  Every formation we use will require either 2 or 3 CBs, so you need a lot more quality in depth to ensure competitiveness.  And maybe I am undervaluaing just how specialized a CAM is, but I don’t see the kind of personnel flexibility at CB.   You just need them - and they need to be good enough to compete with high level attackers.  

  

I agree with you theoretically and the number 10 position is slowly getting eliminated in the game. A guy like ozil would be a luxury player and now cams are guys like bellingham who are very 2 way. Having said that, we are completely lost of attacking ideas vs a low block. Kone is a runner more than a technician, staq is an 8 and may be a decent option but I think we need him to set the tempo which means he will naturally receive passes closer to our backline than the opponents, and david essentially plays as a 10 whenever he starts with larin and he gets isolated or only receives that ball with his back to net. 

All of these are possible solutions but then we are basically saying we are not playing an incisive playmaker type. The fact that we really only have a poor form oso and a super sub hoilett being played out of position at cam really speaks to the lack of options. If we need to break down a low block and we look at our lineup/bench, its goign to be a tough ask. If we need to lock down a lead and throw on another CB, or replace a tiring one, we should be able to do that easily without any drop in quality (but i agree that the overall cb quality is currently not good enough). 

[Footyeh]

Congrats to Jamie on his debut, lets hope he continues to see minutes.

He was very average/poor with the Canada U20's, looked the lesser player to Matteo Campagna who played alongside him.  Good lesson for us fans, a tournament/season is not indicative of a players true level/abilities.  Sometimes players just need the right club to get an opportunity to show himself.

[Shway]

3 hours ago, Footyeh said:

....Sometimes players just need the  ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶c̶l̶u̶b̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶ opportunity to show himself.

Majority of times, it's just that initial opportunity.

Like you said, I hope he continues to get minutes, because right now I think it's a bit overzealous the way I see some people adding him to their 23's..... I guess it's to keep him out the clutches of the cap and stashers aka England?

[Borjans Sweatpants]

2 hours ago, Shway said:

Majority of times, it's just that initial opportunity.

Like you said, I hope he continues to get minutes, because right now I think it's a bit overzealous the way I see some people adding him to their 23's..... I guess it's to keep him out the clutches of the cap and stashers aka England?

For me, yes and no. Sure he’s young, but he’s now gotten minutes in the Championship.

1. Keep him out of others (though I don’t know if he has a second nation to turn to?), but

2. Is he more raw than Bombito would be?

[InglewoodJack]

Yeah my biggest reason for wanting to fast track him through to our national team is hoping England doesn’t grab him, but he’s a championship team prospect, I would think that puts him all the way at the bottom of their depth chart. I mostly just want to avoid the 3 or so year will he or won’t he thing where he plays for their U19s, U20s, whatever, everyone knows he’ll play for us eventually, but we have to keep rehashing the subject because he wants to go through their system. I think he does need actual playing time before a call though. If for no reason then Canada needs to hold themselves higher than selecting a youth player for a championship team. Makes sense if the guy is playing for Liverpool or even Fulham, but at Bristol, I’d hope he actually gets regular minutes before a call.

[costarg]

Shades of Tomori.  He was young, played in Championship.  His coach (Lampard) went to Chelsea and brought him along to shore up the bench after the loan ran out, a few timely injuries had him starting for quite a few games and he shined, few months later he was the starter at AC Milan.  Things happen quick and he can be gone in the blink of an eye.  He can also have 2-3 games for CANMNT where he shines and his club coach sees it and starts playing him regularly.  Sitting on our asses thinking he's only a bench warmer in the Championship while we're playing Vitoria all the time isn't getting us anywhere.  

We knew our backline was weak two years ago, we got lucky during WCQ and ignored the issue for 2 years.  It's like we know our roof leaks, but it hasn't rained in a month, so we're fine.

[VinceA]

All this talk and we don't even know if the new coach will rate him or just bury him in the reserves.

[costarg]

16 minutes ago, VinceA said:

All this talk and we don't even know if the new coach will rate him or just bury him in the reserves.

He may very well be banished to the reserves.  The only things we know for certain are:

• Vitoria will be retired in 12-18 months
• Johnston is not a CB
• Miller is not good enough for the Championship either

 

[dyslexic nam]

9 hours ago, Footyeh said:

Sometimes players just need the right club to get an opportunity to show himself.

I thought this said "night club" and it made me think of JdG. 

[Obinna]

2 minutes ago, costarg said:

He may very well be banished to the reserves.  The only things we know for certain are:

• Vitoria will be retired in 12-18 months
• Johnston is not a CB
• Miller is not good enough for the Championship either

 

It's not clear to me that Miller is not good enough for the Championship. There are a lot of teams of varying strength in the division. If you don't think he can cut it at a top team pushing for promotion, then fair enough, but a team in the middle or the bottom? 

What is clear is that Johnston is not a CB and Vitoria will be retired within 18 months (well....in theory he will be).

To your point though - yes we should bring in Knight-Label. We need guys like this to get integrated sooner than later. 

[Kadenge]

2 hours ago, Borjans Sweatpants said:

 

1. Keep him out of others (though I don’t know if he has a second nation to turn to?), but

 

JKL has a Canadian father and a Welsh mother. So potentially Wales, England & Canada. Given that we don't have active youth teams (other than Concacaf WCQ) and only play the odd friendly, calling up  players like LDF & JKL is the only way to keep them connected to Canada. Besides as was mentioned, players in spots 17-23/20-23 will not see the field anyways but they get to train and develop relationships with our core players. Yes its Bristol City but it's the position he plays that's driving the interest. We are desperate at CB.

[Bigandy]

1 hour ago, costarg said:

Shades of Tomori.  He was young, played in Championship.  His coach (Lampard) went to Chelsea and brought him along to shore up the bench after the loan ran out, a few timely injuries had him starting for quite a few games and he shined, few months later he was the starter at AC Milan.  Things happen quick and he can be gone in the blink of an eye.  He can also have 2-3 games for CANMNT where he shines and his club coach sees it and starts playing him regularly.  Sitting on our asses thinking he's only a bench warmer in the Championship while we're playing Vitoria all the time isn't getting us anywhere.  

We knew our backline was weak two years ago, we got lucky during WCQ and ignored the issue for 2 years.  It's like we know our roof leaks, but it hasn't rained in a month, so we're fine.

I dont see this as similar to tomori. Tomori was a youth player at chelsea, not a championship club. He was loaned out several times with his second last loan being to derby where he was already the best player on that squad. He then played a year and a half at chelsea where he made 26 appearances. After a year and a half he went to ac milan.  Tomoris development path never was a blink of the eye moment. He was always destined for the top and like almost all top players, had a couple of developmental loans along the way. Chelsea is a high turnover club and they brought in thiago silva so it made sense he wanted to leave. 

Also, I'm not sure its fair to say we ignored the issue. We literally changed our entire formation and developed AJ as a CB because we knew our backline is weak. Since WCQ started, we have brought in AJ, Kennedy, ZMG, Bombito, Waterman, Zator, LMK, Heibert and LDF. We also have reintegrated cornelius.  Thats essentially 10 new players we have brought in to try and solve our CB crisis. Theres not a single other position where we have tried that many guys to fix the leaky roof. 

We also attempted to get guys like holmes and sondre and looked at james and sturing as possible solutions. Pearlman and campagna were taxi squad players as well with long term development in mind. We also have stayed in contact with LDF, JKL, and stefanovic as they are our top CB prospects. 

j

[nolando]

2 hours ago, Kadenge said:

JKL has a Canadian father and a Welsh mother. So potentially Wales, England & Canada. Given that we don't have active youth teams (other than Concacaf WCQ) and only play the odd friendly, calling up  players like LDF & JKL is the only way to keep them connected to Canada. Besides as was mentioned, players in spots 17-23/20-23 will not see the field anyways but they get to train and develop relationships with our core players. Yes its Bristol City but it's the position he plays that's driving the interest. We are desperate at CB.

Wasn't Jimmy Brennan there at one point?

[costarg]

1 hour ago, Bigandy said:

I dont see this as similar to tomori. Tomori was a youth player at chelsea, not a championship club. He was loaned out several times with his second last loan being to derby where he was already the best player on that squad. He then played a year and a half at chelsea where he made 26 appearances. After a year and a half he went to ac milan.  Tomoris development path never was a blink of the eye moment. He was always destined for the top and like almost all top players, had a couple of developmental loans along the way. Chelsea is a high turnover club and they brought in thiago silva so it made sense he wanted to leave. 

Also, I'm not sure its fair to say we ignored the issue. We literally changed our entire formation and developed AJ as a CB because we knew our backline is weak. Since WCQ started, we have brought in AJ, Kennedy, ZMG, Bombito, Waterman, Zator, LMK, Heibert and LDF. We also have reintegrated cornelius.  Thats essentially 10 new players we have brought in to try and solve our CB crisis. Theres not a single other position where we have tried that many guys to fix the leaky roof. 

We also attempted to get guys like holmes and sondre and looked at james and sturing as possible solutions. Pearlman and campagna were taxi squad players as well with long term development in mind. We also have stayed in contact with LDF, JKL, and stefanovic as they are our top CB prospects. 

j

Your timeline memory is a lot better than mine!  But ya, i meant once he broke into Derby very young, he did not lose his spot.  Showed enough that Lampard kept him at Chelsea.  Once he broke through at Chelsea, it was 100% clear we lost him.  That is what I'd like to avoid with the next opportunities.  Koleosho seems to be trending that way as well.  Need to invest in these guys before they get their big break.  Probability, trajectory and a little reality dictates LDF and JKL will be better players than Vitoria ever was, we need to treat them as such and not favour makeshift formations and shoehorn players to compensate.  Show them a little faith!

Regarding us, sure we played Kennedy.  I wouldn't say ZMG, Bombito, Waterman Zator or any of the other guys actually got a real shot or put in a situation where they could succeed.  They barely got a chance, even some of the ones that did were played out of position.  AJ, Vitoria and Miller all had horrible games and a carte blanche.  All these guys got judged and thrown back after half a shake.  Even Hutch got more time at CB than most of these guys and we all knew that was crazy.  Moves like that don't instil belief or confidence in a guy like Cornelius looking on from the bench, he knows they don't trust him.

[Bigandy]

5 minutes ago, costarg said:

Your timeline memory is a lot better than mine!  But ya, i meant once he broke into Derby very young, he did not lose his spot.  Showed enough that Lampard kept him at Chelsea.  Once he broke through at Chelsea, it was 100% clear we lost him.  That is what I'd like to avoid with the next opportunities.  Koleosho seems to be trending that way as well.  Need to invest in these guys before they get their big break.  Probability, trajectory and a little reality dictates LDF and JKL will be better players than Vitoria ever was, we need to treat them as such and not favour makeshift formations and shoehorn players to compensate.  Show them a little faith!

Regarding us, sure we played Kennedy.  I wouldn't say ZMG, Bombito, Waterman Zator or any of the other guys actually got a real shot or put in a situation where they could succeed.  They barely got a chance, even some of the ones that did were played out of position.  AJ, Vitoria and Miller all had horrible games and a carte blanche.  All these guys got judged and thrown back after half a shake.  Even Hutch got more time at CB than most of these guys and we all knew that was crazy.  Moves like that don't instil belief or confidence in a guy like Cornelius looking on from the bench, he knows they don't trust him.

We for sure need to invest young. In fairness though, we had tomori at the u17 (i think) level, weve been working with koleosho and trying to get him involved as much as he would like, Biellos been talking to LDF for years, JKL has been in the program for years, flores was worked on as a youth and Jebbison has been contacted for years. I'd argue mitrovic and sigur are the only guys we havnt really approached young and even then, the mitrovic saga was complicated by his dad. We need to improve our closing rate of duals but we have been making the efforts. 

I agree with your assesment. Kennedy and cornelius have gotten a fair shake. Bombito seems to be getting his chance to grow with the program, ZMG is a servicable deputy and waterman, zator, heibert, and LMN all seem to not be good enough in the coaches eyes to warrant more time. I honestly very much support this assesment. Miller, vitoria, kennedy, cornelius and bombito are all good enough until one of our prospects can replace vitoria. One of the other guys (likely ZMG can be a stop gap for injuries etc). Calling up any of the other guys seems like a lateral or backwards move. 

[blueseeka]

Played with the u21's today. Bristol City plays on Saturday versus Shef Wednesday

[Obinna]

13 hours ago, blueseeka said:

Played with the u21's today. Bristol City plays on Saturday versus Shef Wednesday

Looks like he was rockin the Captains armband too. Nice.

[InglewoodJack]

Is he usually captain? Would assume he’s one of the top players on the team given his call up to the senior side.

[Borjans Sweatpants]

6 minutes ago, Obinna said:

Looks like he was rockin the Captains armband too. Nice.

Think he has been their Captain for a while if I’m not mistaken, always thought that was one of his more impressive qualities considering his age. 

[WestHamCanadianinOxford]

5 hours ago, Borjans Sweatpants said:

Think he has been their Captain for a while if I’m not mistaken, always thought that was one of his more impressive qualities considering his age. 

Every game I remember seeing this season at least. 

I remember saying that having an 18 year old captain a Championship u21 side is worth watching, whether he got senior minutes or not. 

[Borjans Sweatpants]

On the bench again today vs Sheffield Wednesday

Edited November 4, 2023 by Borjans Sweatpants

[Bigandy]

J. knight scored in the FA cup vs Nottingham forest.... 

Its a shame that J. Knight-Lebel is a different player. However, he's on the bench tonight which is good news.