MDT vs Manure Kids Team

When did we last cover the million a year it costs to run with academy sales?

Let's go on just the past two seasons so that's two million quid that if had been available to spend on the first team would have given us better chance of Championship riches.

 

I think the management has to take a huge amount of the blame for tonight. Not necessarily for the team they picked (I was actually excited to see how they got on). But at half time they made 3 subs including taking some experience off. That didn’t help in itself but they also changed other players positions to make it work so there was more like 5 changes rather than just 3. We then lost all shape and structure which eventually came back to bite us.

In that 2nd half some of the young kids didn’t do themselves justice. But I think they were set up in a losing cause because of the changes that were made.

I’ve seen criticism of Mejman but if you played him alongside Benson or Russell in a settled structure he’d look a lot better.

Oh…. And O’Keefe was a disgrace the way he finished that game. I can only imagine what the reaction was in the dressing room.

 

On a serious note, outside of the squabbling. I genuinely believe we should look at a B team style model like Brentford do. Only sweeping up kids who are borderline in the first team.

If you look at the top prospects we have coming through, who are they? Bland (West Brom), Vimal (Liverpool), Fab (Benfica).

Operating a B team model would be in our favour imo

 

I might be wrong but the last players I can think of that did anything were James bree and Jordan clark - I might have memory lapse though - the obvious one is John stones !

I can’t believe it’s 30 years since we had the likes of Liddell, Eaden, Moses etc

 

At the end of the day, an academy is a huge role of the dice.

You've got no idea what the quality of young player is gonna walk through your door and the quality of your players has very little impact on the cost of running one.

I genuinely believe a B team would be the better move going forward. It puts the emphasis on you to pick the quality out, which is a lot easier to predict at 17-20 than it is with U14s. Sure the ones who are being let go are so for a reason but just because they won't make the Man Utd side doesn't mean they wouldn't be good enough to spin a tidy profit for us.

Which ultimately is the game for a club our size, it's how to artificially inflate your revenue above our usual levels, whilst limiting costs.

I always think back to the scouting part of moneyball.



You don't and you can't know the quality of a kid as a professional sportsman. You're sat at the blackjack table with an academy, waiting on the cards your dealt.

For me, the gap in modern football is this, the niche that was data 10 years ago is gone. You have to find a new one and for me a B team is an exciting opportunity to do that.

 

I think you’re spot on. You see some tier 8/9 sides having u23s - if they ain’t good enough at 22/23 they’ve slipped through the net for a reason

I’ll cut a long story short but Simon jordan told me only Stephen hunt dropped out of their academy at palace and went on to prove them wrong

big clubs hoover up the talent from all parts of the globe, let alone the UK. So when someone with promise rocks up at such as oakwell they’re onto it like a rat on a weetabix

they’ve not only ruined the game at the top , their greed has run riot and ruined it all the way down the pyramid

 

Things we learned tonight:
Although it is a meaningless cup it's impossible not to care
The gulf between the youngters and first team players is considerable. As it should be of course.
Yoganathan has a bright future ahead of him
O'Keeffe should be ashamed of himself, unless the officials got it completely wrong, which is unlikely.

 

That's a very fair point. However, there are certain posts that have all but written off the entire cohort of kids, the academy as a whole, and thrown in some digs at DC and the board for good measure, based on a match which is little more than a glorified training exercise. A match which if it had ended after 84 minutes, everyone would have been purring about how good the kids looked. Which by all accounts in the first half they did.

 

i dont know how well they will develop and this competition is great to blood young uns. Sometimes its a sink or swim opportunity. Whether we like it or not, few showed up in the second half. My point was there is some learning from that for all. However for the general fan it wasnt impressive. There is also an argument we threw the kids under the bus, as you said they hadn’t played together before and to me looked out of their depth. We at least need to keep them motivated and build confidence. As for writing them off, no, but if people judge who the potential first team prospects are only from yesterday then for sure people will be disappointed.

 

Didn't even bother to watch the match and glad I didn't now.

 

I guarantee anybody who has watched football for more than a couple of matches wouldn't have been purring about how good they looked, even if we had won the game.

 

This could be me, and this could be the modern methods of coaching in general - with this tippy-tappy tag type football seemingly being coached, but it seems a rarity if a full back/wing back/winger actually runs at players to beat their man or if they're coached to stop, cut back in and pass it backwards or sideways, instead of trying to get a cross in.
Another dying art seems to be the centre forward who attacks the near post with a diagonal run - the likes of shearer, lineker, rush etc seemed to score 10 a season this way - nowadays it's as if they coach the forward to gamble on the GK spilling or missing the ball, so they make a run behind the GK instead of in front of him - in the rare event a ball actually gets whipped in.
There's too much of this modern coaching crap in the game - if he makes this run , you do that run - just go out an play your game and win your battle was the order of the day when I was younger!
All this terminology - 'breaking the lines' - aka making a run into space. 'High press' - basically chasing folk down and looking like you give a ****. 'Overload' - basically you've got more men attacking than what's defending, if you win the ball back, peg it forward- not exactly rocket science . 'Recycling the ball' - basically you've made a t!ts in the position you're in, so pass it to someone who hasnt got 3 of the opposition shirts around them. 'Low block' - if you havent got the ball, chuck everyone back and dont let the bar stewards in.
Football always was and always is about man management, knowing who needs the arm around the shoulder, who needs a kick up the @rse and seeing what makes people tick - by doing one thing with one player and how that affects the others thinking - ie playing Trippier for England at LB when he's got LBs in the squad - Shaw would've rightly been sat thinking ' why bring me if a RB gets in over me' etc.
Someone good in man management skills could be successful in football - they can shove their coaching manuals up their ronson!!

 

Agree with quite a lot of this.

Liverpool under Klopp still attacked with their full backs trying to beat men & get to the byline & had great success through it.

Even if Trent & Robertson didn’t beat the man then the odds are the ball goes out for a corner or throw in your favour or the supporting player Henderson as the RCM or Wijnaldium as the LCM is ready to pick up the loose ball behind.

It’s unlikely that a defenders going to put a tackle in on someone running at full speed trying to beat him & come away with the ball to launch a counter attack.

 

Some criticism is warranted.

Mine is aimed more at Marsh who SHOULD be now capable at league 1 level with the amount of time he has spent around the 1st team setup. He hasn't looked anywhere near so far this season and to be fair with that experience should have shown a lot more when he came on in the second half. Poor control and positioning, no real threat to their defensive line.

Nejman almost the same.

Now I don't expect to see world beating performances from these two but out of our academy, they have probably been given the most chances but I fail to see the improvement from when first introduced to lets call it mainstream football.

It seems like we get players to a certain U20 level and then we can't push the standard beyond that with their development. Is this a problem with our Academy setup?

Yes we had Stones and to a lesser extent Holgate but we defo should have seen more development in the latter stages of youth football.

 

It’s just a lack of natural ability, some players have it in order to make the step up. Sadly Marsh just isn’t good enough. He’s non league level.

 

You make some fair points. But you were not as brutal as a few others were.

I think they need two things to have a chance.

1. Match experience
2. Support from the fans

The fact is that they put in a great first half performance and then struggled after a significant change in tactics and personnel. And still, without an absolute wonder goal many well have gotten the result. They will have learnt a lot and I for one am proud of the youngsters.. but do get what you're saying about the more experienced lads.

I do love the fact that he gave them the opportunity and challenged them though.

 

Thats surely what this competition is for? Play the kids/fringe players and see what they're made of. If they aren't good enough at the minute then it is what it is.

Imagine if we'd have gone full strength last night and Cosgrove/Connell/Pines/Phillips got injured. He'd get crucified and rightly so.

 

Poor game, especially the second half. The first half was better, more comfortable, with Lofthouse & Yoganathan looking skilful and creative.
However, taking into account how many youngsters played as the game progressed, it'd be barmy to judge the season on this match.

 

For me, Killip needs to do better and we win that game. He didn't seem to stop any shots.

 

Pretty much my take on it. Some positives, but unsurprisingly a team of kids fell apart at the end.

Need to focus on Northampton. If we're short up top in the second half there could be a case for pushing up Yoganathan or Lofthouse, as both looked decent in the final third, if only against an U21s team. We're so threadbare up front, it may be in the gaffer's mind, know knows? I'm glad I'm not picking the team, that's for sure.