We should say it as we see it and not blow smoke up their arses to make them believe they are better than we've seen.
Agree, I said earlier that it was the changes that changed the game, it wasn’t a criticism, just how it was.
I've been tonight (BETTER FAN ALERT) as I thought I'd have a run out with my Mum cos we don't do much together these days. PROS - The Thai place in the Glassworks was superb. Parking and access from there and over Nudgers Bridge was easily navigated. - Russell and Benson were miles above everything on the pitch in the first half. - Yongi took his two goals well and linked up with Lofthouse intelligently. CONS - It banged it down for 20 minutes. - Half time kiosk service a complete shambles. - O'Keefe has basically punched an 8 year old. As you can tell, I've not taken this game too seriously, and neither has the club. Yes it's nice to win, but it's even nicer to see local lads do well. 4 kids in front of me were made up cos their mate "Wilko" from school was playing - they cheered every one of his touches. I'm more interested in the performance and result on Saturday.
Seeing happy family & friends was one of my highlights of going to the cup games last season. I remember Jack Shepherds first appearance & all his mates loving it.
Have you any idea at all how good you need to be to get to the point these academy lads are at? But some people, and you are by no means on your own, make seemingly casual judgements based upon a mere glimpse of these young players. I acknowledge that this is simply a forum, and that you are well within your rights to express whatever your opinion might be, justified or otherwise. And so am I. Thankfully, the club employs professionals to make judgments, based upon proper insight, and upon the things they see every day. Hopefully they don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Can’t say I’m bothered about the trophy,I never have been. However I do take exception to the way that we lost, I think it’s a good competition to get players up to speed who need game time and I get that we don’t want to overdo it with them on their way back, but the substitutions second half were ridiculous.We lost our shape and our intensity , people had paid good money for what turned out to be a glorified training session. Not the players fault IMHO just bad management on this occasion.
I genuinely hope that if some of the complainers on here have kids of their own, that they don't hold them to the same standard as they do these young lads. Most of whom have devoted most of their childhoods to try and earn a chance to wear that red shirt. I'm just getting fed up of how much stick a worryingly large chunk of our fan base give to our own kids.
I think it’s a bit ridiculous to try & lecture me about how the club employ professionals when I’m regularly on here defending managers like I did Neil Collins when others were slating him. Regularly defended Kane, Williams & Cadden from in my opinion underserved abuse. I’ve also been on here defending Marsh in the past week or so. I defended giving Wolfe another deal. And I've got a relative who was released by the club a few years back who’s unbelievable when he comes for a game of 7 a side so I’ve a good idea how good someone can be & still not make it. With most of the young players we have I’ve seen some talent & attributes that make you understand why they’ve stayed in the academy as long as they have. When I’ve watched Nejman a few times including a couple of starts I just don’t get it. I think he’s shown far less than Ackroyd for example who was released in the summer. It’s just an opinion. I hope I’m wrong & that he makes it. I hope I’m on here in a couple of years saying well done to the lad.
It's professional football, we're not a charity and these are just people's opinions on someone's footballing ability based on one game, it is a forum after all. I haven't seen anyone making nasty personal comments, just comments about someone's footballing ability. If all the level of "abuse" I ever got was about my ability to do my profession (speaking as a teen), I'd be over the moon. Thick skin required in the big boy leagues, comes with the perks.
Sorry mate, but I don't agree with this at all. I think it's miles off what actually happened. I made one pretty lame negative comment, barely worth a reaction, but it wasn't directed at the kids, because as much as people want to claim we had a team full of kids, we didn't. We conceded 3 goals in 6 minutes. Our goalkeeper, Killip, is 28. McCarthy, centre half, is 26. O'Keeffe, right wing back, is 26. Lopata, centre half, is 22. That's not a defence made up of kids. They're seasoned professionals who capitulated when confronted with kids. I don't believe being less than impressed with these players is the hanging offence you're claiming it to be.
If the academy is costing us £1m a year to run and we haven’t really had much off the production line , should we just do away with it ? The alternative I’m assuming could be links with local non league clubs on certain agreements etc. I’ve been to every one of these games and the quality on both fronts most of the time (u21s and us) is poor I remember watching a reserve game in around 1989(ish) v Man Utd at oakwell and it was nearly as busy as it was for the league game (although you couldn’t see much of it for Julian broddles perm) as Man U had a few players coming back from injury - surely a regional reserve league with x amount of young players having to be in it would be a better shout as for me (if the academy was to be kept) that’s the only way they’ll get some proper footballing knowledge
All of a sudden Northampton this Saturday is a massive game bearing in mind our awful home form that goes back to February and if I’m being honest i can’t say i fancy us at the minute.
Our academy is a waste of money. I'd rather it was shut because when money is really tight I think we could make better use of the seven figure sum per year in costs to run.
Why should we be playing the back up players (kids) anyway, we used to try and take these Cups seriously. Before this lot took over anyway, and made it all about kids, and possible profit.