"Meanwhile, Sam Patterson was an unused substitute for Halifax Town"

Excuse me???? What is the point in sending out players on loan to non-league teams if they can't even get on the pitch. That is an insult.

Keep them at Oakwell unless they are guaranteed games surely?

 

Prepare yourself for a tirade of facts and figures from the oracle , tomfun

 

I think it more begs the question of how good actually are these players if they can't get a game for Halifax?

 

I suppose the difficulty with youth development at football clubs is getting the timing right. If the club is in a position to gradually ease young players into the first team, or or two at a time, they will either click, develop and become established, or will fail to make the grade and get shipped out. On the other hand, we never seem to be in a stable enough position to do this, hence the panic buying or loaning in of average senior players who just get in the way of the development programme.

I don't know what the answer is - there must be a lot of luck involved most of the time. As you say, Stones was an exceptional talent that couldn't be ignored. This has rarely happened at Oakwell though. We have had some great youth team players but not many have made the successful step up. Many of those that have done so have either left to better things, or left and sunk without trace

 

Patterson looked pretty capable in the pre-season friendlies but I suppose he isn't quite up to the super Scotty Wiseman standard yet

 

Hill and flitcroft will probably spend most of there careers claiming to be the biggest influence on john stones career but had wiseman not been going through a horrible run of form would stones have got the run of games he got ?

 

Noble-Lazarus wasn't even on the bench for Scunny. Is he injured? He was subbed after 55 minutes in the previous game and came on as an 83rd minute sub in the one before.

Jennings was subbed after 56 minutes for MK Dons. Although they did beat Wolves at Molineux. Doesn't sound like Jennings did much from the report though, other than being the only MK Dons player to be booked.

Dagnall was subbed after 71 minutes for Coventry. This from the Coventry website "Dagnall was dispossessed in midfield with the ball falling to the feet of Aneke who slipped a through ball to Hitchcock to apply a cool finish past Joe Murphy."

McNulty played the full game for Tranmere. They lost 4-1.

Is Andrai Jones still at Tranmere? If he is he's not getting picked.

They've all dropped down at least one division, they're either not getting selected, getting selected and being substituted or their teams are getting hammered. Maybe they're just not very good.

 

RNL aye injured.

 

That is a sorry list indeed.

 

Just think how bad it would have been without Flitcroft helping develop those players!

 

They need to get games against other professionals, what they learn against other kids is minimal.

It is worrying though that they can't get games at these clubs.