With young talent heading to SA1 in search of a more cultured footballing education, what do we know about our new youth players?
As mentioned in the last blog post, the Swans yesterday confirmed the acquisition of Kristian Scott, a USA Youth International, from Stoke. Scott is the latest in a line of youngsters to view Swansea as the ideal place to further their footballing education, so I thought I'd try and piece together some info on our new signings, and combine it with what I found out about Zabret & Gogic when they signed on.
Gregor Zabret Age: 17 Position: Goalkeeper
Zabret is a young Slovenian signed from NK Domzale, who finished third in the Slovenian League last season. He played 11 times last season (and three the season prior to that), keeping three clean sheets and attracted interest from several parties.
He apparently knocked back offers from West Brom and Sporting Lisbon to join the Swans after completing a trial period at the club in January. He's already playing for the Swans' development side and hopefully he'll go on to big things.
He's certainly got a physical presence at 6'2", but I can't say I've seen him play yet, and the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. From the match report of the development game against Millwall it doesn't sound like there was much he could do about either of the goals, so it must have been a fairly encouraging start to his Swans career.
He apparently knocked back offers from West Brom and Sporting Lisbon to join the Swans after completing a trial period at the club in January. He's already playing for the Swans' development side and hopefully he'll go on to big things.
He's certainly got a physical presence at 6'2", but I can't say I've seen him play yet, and the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. From the match report of the development game against Millwall it doesn't sound like there was much he could do about either of the goals, so it must have been a fairly encouraging start to his Swans career.
Kenji Gorre Age: 18 Position: Winger/Forward
Gorre joined up with the Swans in March after previously being on the books at Manchester United. He's the son of Dean Gorre, who some fans may remember playing for Ajax, Feyenoord and Huddersfield. Yes, you read that right.
A tricky forward, he shot to fame at United after scoring this goal against the Wolves youth team. Apologies for the ghetto nature of the video.
He went on tour with the squad to Holland (as did Zabret and, I think Alex Gogic) and even managed to get himself on the scoresheet when the Swans beat Excelsior 5-1, and his involvement would indicate to me that the powers that be at the club hold him in high regard.
Alex Gogic Age: 19 Position: Midfielder
From what I can garner online, I think Gogic is a wide midfielder who operates in one of the positions either side of the striker in our formation. Signed from Olympiakos on what I think we can assume to be essentially a free transfer, he's a Cyprus U21 international and is another already in the fold of the development squad. There's not much info about the lad online so we'll have to wait and see. Hopefully I'll be able to get down to see the development team in action soon.
Kristian Scott Age: 18 Position: Central Midfield
USA international Scott signed this week from Stoke City after previously being on the books at Bristol City - where his dad Kevin (an ex-Newcastle defender) was an academy scout. When his dad moved east so did Kris and he's continued his development by moving to South Wales.
A talented individual, he's been selected for the United States U15 and U18 squad, and was recently called up to the Ireland U19 squad on account of qualifying through his grandmother. He couldn't feature due to injury, and when I briefly spoke to him on Twitter he said he's as yet undecided as to whether he'd play international football for Ireland, the US or England (his father is English, his mother American).
Hopefully now that he's swapped long ball for tika-taka he can kick on and become an important member of the squad.
Jernade Meade Age: 20 Position: Left Back
Meade signed from Arsenal earlier in the summer and is arguably the coup of the lot. After he signed, I did a bit of digging online and found quite a few Arsenal fans disgruntled at letting him go, as they viewed him as a very exciting prospect. He made his debut for the Gunners in their mental 7-5 win over Reading in the League Cup and impressed sufficiently to be handed his full debut as Arsenal took on Olympiakos away in the Champions League. We've got a player in the development side who's already played in the Champions League. Mental.
An attacking left-back who can also operate on the wing, he seemed set to break into the first-team when injury curtailed his progress, and he'll now be hoping that he can stay injury-free and get his career back on track in SA1. It seems strange he wasn't offered a new deal at Arsenal given his (granted, limited) first team involvement, but hopefully the Gunners' loss is our gain.
One thing to note is that at 5'3" he's nicked Leon's crown of "most diminutive player"...
Best of the rest
It would be rude not to mention a few other names now that I've mentioned the new guys. Scott Tancock (captain of the reserves) and Daniel Alfei both look tidy centre-backs, while Rory Donnelly got his full debut away at Petrolul the other night. Somewhat of a baptism of fire, but he's definitely shown enough to give us hope for the future.
Other names that are held in high regards behind the scenes in SA1 are those of James Loveridge, Henry Jones and Kyle Copp. Jones is a central midfielder (read an excellent article on him here) and has shown a great range of passing so far, while Copp is a forward who has long been touted as a serious prospect. Loveridge has been impressing of late and got the MOTM award in the FAW Youth Cup Final against West End after bagging himself a hat-trick. Check out the highlights here to see a couple of the guys in action:
With the training facilities looking very, very good indeed and a burgeoning youth system, hopefully we can start to produce more and more home-grown players, as well as bringing in other young players who look like they'll fit the way we do things around here. Another success story like Ben Davies' would go down very well indeed.