Er Jones was a first team regular before he played for us and went straight in the first team and Hyam was straight in the first team squad
Hyam was brought in as development. He got a chance in the first team and impressed so stayed there.
Thing with the development model is we seem to have been trying to be a budget version of the big teams - bring in quite a few players for development and hope one or two of them progress. It seems like we bring a lot of them in more in hope than expectation. The fact Adi has been here during that time after his stint at Chelsea doesn't make this a big surprise.
I'd rather us focus on a small number of young players we really expect to progress and have them playing with more experienced pro's to learn off as opposed to throwing tonnes of shit at a wall and hoping some sticks. We had a good reputation for providing opportunities for youngsters to progress to the first team, which would have been attractive, but we're running the risk of losing it because in recent years we'd brought in quite a few who've never got close and then just been released.
MR seemed to have this thing about being 'streetwise' and he clearly thinks the squad lacks the experience to manage games effectively as so wants to add more of that in, esp at this higher level whereas you could get away with it a bit more in L1/2.
Ideally we'd be bring in players around 26-28 and reaching their peak, but to be effective at this level those players will cost money and at the end of their contract will be around 30 and be losing value. So if we want experience we've got to go for those ones that are 30-ish and starting to lose value as they're the ones we can afford.
We've paid fees for Gyo and Sheaf who are 23 and will be first-team squad members, plus bringing in the much younger Dinanga and Rus on a bit of a punt. So it's hardly like we've abandoned signing young players.