The point is he's putting in over £100m to get access to the multi millions available from the Premier League...add the two together and they don't need an academy when they have millions available to spend on the players.
He might be now. But he wasn’t years ago. They had the no academy process in place before they even got promoted from league one. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ditched-their-academy-premier-league-outcasts
I do agree he is a completely different player to last year, and was one of our best players when in the team. Why he was dropped, is a strange one, although O'Keeffe has done well since coming in. However, I thought he was shocking and seemed uninterested last night.
I dont disagree that he was shocking last night, mate. But for him, I think it was a glorified friendly as I said above. In the back of his mind hes probably thinking he's been one of our better players and if he gets crocked he'll definitely not get his place back. I know the arguments for winning his place back, but I just think its natural in these sort of games
His strengths are going forward. He had little opportunity to do that with yesterday's line up. We put the team to the sword yesterday, when we could have had Hourihane & a couple of other established players in the mix. We were out of the competition, but to my mind the young players would have done better, if there was a bit of structure to the side. There wasn't.
I cant believe folks are going on about a game that meant nothing in a poor competition tbh(ok it was nice to go Wembley a few year back, but we were out b4 this game)….and out of all those having ago at last nights performance, how many of you went to watch it?…..stones/glasshouses n all that eh?
Every game matters. Some games are far more important than other ones. This one wasn't important in terms of the result. That said I'm flummoxed as to what last night was meant to achieve, other than a humiliating defeat for young, promising players against lower league opposition. Yes, I watched it on Sky. I flew back from Amsterdam the day before & had my Dad's health issues, my business & a friend on the edge of being sectioned to get involved with. I don't need a guilt trip for watching a match. It's a shame the way the football fixtures have panned out, which is covered on many other threads on here. Hopefully that explains it.
Can we all get over the fact that Hourihane will never play for us again. He's a coach, as much chance as Devaney running down the wing again.
We were sold a pup there . I didn't expect him to be a regular but at least to be player/coach leader in the micky mouse cup to help the youngsters . Missed opportunity .
Cheers, he's well gone with dementia now, but still pleased to see us. It's sad to see such a strong man face away, but he is 88 & had a fantastic retirement for many, many years.