Good to see Mason Holgate back at Oakwell

Even in the championship I wouldn't fancy him at centre half. But I don't see anyone cementing the right back spot just yet and i'd have him back to play there.

 

Last I heard he played decent in his trial match but they lost.

Some players just struggle to make that step from being an academy player to being a hot prospect to being an established footballer.

You've got to be ruthless. One of the best managed cases I've seen at Oakwell was Jacob Butterfield. He was always talented. But for a long time he just wasn't taking responsibility. He wasn't making that step on or off the field to becoming a real pro. No matter what age you are, whether the player alongside you is 31 and has international caps, at some point you've got to grab your position by the scruff of the neck and dictate. Consistently. We saw that when Butterfield was given the armband. Keith Hill almost forced him into change and it worked.

I was told Liam Lawrence was fantastic for Clark when at Shrews.

But at the same time I feel young players can be subconsciously intimidated by real pros. They go from being main players at academy level, maybe taking freekicks and corners or being captain or the recognised playmaker to being virtual nobodies when they step out in the first team.

All of a sudden they're playing to earn the right to take long distance shots, take set pieces, some of them seem to shy away. They maybe choose to pass inside to a more experienced team mate where as at academy level they'd have tried something more progressive.

I don't mean to bring George Smith into this again. I never really saw him play at academy level. But from what I've read on here he was a very attack minded full back. He loved to overlap and whip balls in. Now playing for the first team I feel he attempted to do that at first. As time went on he gradually crept into his shell. Almost to the point he stopped going over the half way line. There could be a couple of reasons for that. Either he wasn't good enough to do so so he didn't try. Or he just didn't have the confidence at first team to level to ignore shouts from maybe Conor inside and think '**** it I'm going to take him him on'. Or just bomb on the overlap and demand the ball screaming everytime he didn't get it. If George had done that maybe we'd have seen a different player.

Going back to James Bree. I know he's still only very young but he does need to take his game by the scruff of the neck. It doesn't matter how old he is. He's a Championship footballer and he has a chance to make his name. It's time now he starts taking more risks. If he doesn't he'll soon find himself on the bench.

There's a tendency on this board to give young players almost an unlimited amount of time to progress. You are shot down on here if you criticise our academy lads. An acceptance that they're 'doing well' when actually they're playing mediocre. I can tell you coaches and managers don't accept mediocre. If you're not capable or not showing you're capable then you're out of the team. The next thing you're out of a job. We've seen it with Clark, Smith, RNL, Digby and many others.

The ones who have taken responsibility and played with confidence like Stones, Butterfield and Holgate have shown where it can take you.




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It was good to see him get a good reception from our fans. I thought he might get a few boo's after some of the strange comments on here a while back.

He wasn't great but I often thought he lacked the physical presence to play at centre half. Sam had an off day in front of goal to Mason's benefit.

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Lord Mason Holgate School.

 

I agree with a lot of what you put.

My issue with us is that we've never given Digby, RNL, Clark & Rose a run in the team, at least with Smith we all got to see a fair bit of him.

Ultimately none of them may have been good enough but I think they've all had their key development years wasted by sitting in our reserves rather than been in our team or out on loan