Opinion: good to see youngsters progressing but Vale need to learn lessons on over-reliance

While it’s good to see youngsters earning professional contracts, Rob Fielding says it’s important for the club to manage their development and ensure there is a balanced squad.

Rob Fielding writes…

Vale surely need to not be over-reliant on young, unproven players and also have a core of experienced, battle-hardened professionals to man the League Two trenches. There needs to be a good blend of youth and experience…

Port Vale’s 2024 retained list contained the news that contracts have been offered to four youngsters – Rhys Walters, Jack Shorrock, Andrew Buah and goalkeeper Arron Davies. Should the four agree deals they would join fellow youngsters Baylee Dipepa, James Plant and Ben Lomax in the senior squad, taking the total of youth team graduates to seven.

It’s clearly commendable to see so many youngsters progressing but there are also lessons from last season to take onboard. These young players have potential but they also lack experience. Their youthful potential will compliment the first-team squad, but it’s important for the club not to place an over-reliance on them.

Let’s take two examples – Baylee Dipepa and Jack Shorrock – both of whom were used pretty extensively during the latter part of last season. Arguably they both gained loads from the experience and didn’t let anyone down, but let’s not forget that Vale were still relegated. The club really should have had the squad make-up to not place an over-reliance on Shorrock and Dipepa as it’s a risk to play teenagers so frequently – the flipside of both players playing so many games could have been burnout or even worse potentially destroyed their football career instead.

There’s clearly a balance to be had between too much first-team football and too little. Firstly, if the youngsters (and perhaps Dipepa and Shorrock demonstrate this to some extent) are good enough then age should be no barrier, albeit managed carefully to ensure they aren’t playing too many minutes (which requires adequate cover/options for their positions). And while the expression “you win nothing with kids” was ultimately proven to be incorrect, Vale surely need to not be over-reliant on young, unproven, potentially inconsistent players and also have a core of experienced, battle-hardened professionals to man the League Two trenches. There needs to be a good blend of youth and experience.

However, if Vale do recruit reliable experienced players then won’t most of the youngsters will play less? Well,  this doesn’t have to result in a bunch of disaffected youngsters sitting on the sidelines. The loan system allows Vale to give the teenagers experience elsewhere if they are not getting it in the first-team. Loans spells certainly helped Nathan Smith and James Plant before they broke through to the Port Vale squad.

So what’s the point of this piece? Well, all this can be summed up in a simple phrase – these players may be the future, but please don’t put too much pressure on them to be the present as well.