That being the issue though. As you say there is no medium term plan.

The youth may be a red herring, but until RH considers trying something different or not just like for like we will never know. When he took over he had to play Zaha and Townsend up front and was forced into it. We signed Sorloth who is banging them in, Benteke was scoring under Allardyce. RH seems to want to sacrifice players strengths for the sake of the system - fine, but the system is easy for an opposition to plan for.

Pulis, Allardyce, Hodgson - all seasoned “keep you up managers”. But if they overhauled your squad they are not going to go for prospects - they will go for aging senior players which is not what we need. Older pros clearly respond to Roy, I’m not sure a team of younger players will or indeed would want to come - hence the vicious circle continues.

It is an overly romantic idea to think we can play fast flowing football straight away. I’d just rather we attack with a bit more pace and accepted we can take the game to some teams on the front foot. Zaha, Townsend and Benteke is a front three that should score goals at this level.

Zaha and Townsend have never been known for their goals.
Benteke scored goals for A.Villa when he was fed with crosses.

I don’t disagree with anything you said but Roy was not brought in to develop younger players he was brought in to keep us safe for a few years while the club sorted itself out in the background. It is up to Parish and Dougie to get those younger players in and be ready for the next manager to develop. Roy has no interest in signing 19/20 year olds as he knows he will be gone in a year or so and more than likely this will be his last year in football management.

The same goes with developing or moving with the times,
he was not brought in to develop or move with the times and why would he change everything he knows. He is 74 not 34. This is just something we are going to have to put up with for another year so a lot of may as well get used to it. Roy will be gone in 12 months and so will most of that squad, the next few transfer windows are critical and it will not be Roy making the signings.

I fully agree with you, Roy was bought in as a safe pair of hands after the destruction of FdV.With little resources Roy has done a tremendous job in keeping us in this division with little support on the recruiting front and despite the latter has remained loyal to the club, unlike others in the past who threw their toys out of the pram when they could not get support from the top. Roy is with us until the end of next season at least and it's time we showed our appreciation for what he has achieved.

I find it strange that Meyer gets slagged off after every cameo performance but a long serving player like Ward, who has been dire since the return doesn’t get as much criticism.