Maresca explains why he won't loan out his 3 top 18 year olds who are ready for action
Today at 09:30 AM
Enzo Maresca's two tiered team system has meant lots of opportunities for young players in the Conference League, and in particular he's taken a shine to Marc Guiu, Josh Acheampong and Tyrique George, who all featured last night against Shamrock Rovers.
The manager was asked after the game whether he would consider sending any of that trio out on loan to continue their development – but insisted he'd rather keep them close and develop them within the framework of his team.
"With young players like Marc, like Josh, like Tyrique, for me, the best thing for them is to be with us because they can understand every day the way we want to play, they can grow, we can teach them how we want them to play.
"So I think it's better if they stay with us. But then it depends a little on the desire of the players. If in this case, Marc's desire is to get more minutes and to play more, then we see we sit with him and we will decide to together."
Top prospects staying close a wise philosophy if Maresca keeps using them
We like this attitude overall – the most top tier prospects like Acheampong and George are already good enough to pick up minutes even at 18 years old, so why loan them out at all? Guiu's current ability and potential ability is a little less certain, at least in our opinion. But the fact that there's no other striker in the squad to back up Nicolas Jackson means that keeping him around is sensible too.
If we sign another forward next summer and there's Premier League or top level Championship interest in Guiu which guarantees him a full season playing regularly, a loan might make more sense for him then.
