Rex wrote:
Aren't we playing 15 and 16 year olds in the U21 team? Those who are 19 to 21 and show a bit of promise play for the reserves?
As Est says, the U21's are the reserves. And we play a few 16 year olds here and there, though, no 15 year olds and no more 16 year olds than the other clubs. Truth is, it doesn't really matter if the U21's are doing poorly in their league - they have a different side out every week and the best players are constantly ether out on loan or with first team , the latter is something that happens more here than at other clubs. In the two competitions that matter for the players of that age group; the FA Youth Cup and the Uefa Youth League they gave a respectable account of themselves - knocked out by Barcelona and Chelsea late into both tournaments. That's largely because most of the best talents were called back to play, but not for the unimportant reserve/U21 League matches. In my opinion, our side still looks poorly coached at that level relative to the best sides, in terms of talent, though, and players that can progress to the first team, we look as good as anyone out there as far as my knowledge goes. We've got promising keepers, promising defenders, lots of promising midfielders and a few promising forwards. Our scouting is obviously still a strength and to a lesser extent it shows with the ones that were here from a young age that they got a good education.
The younger age groups, I'm talking specifically about the U16's and the U18's because I don't know anything about the younger sides, are a mess. They're performing poorly relative to previous generations. That's why Jonker has been brought in, to shake up the coaches and the coaching methods at that level - which have been widely criticised. It seems like the knock on effect of Bould and Banfield moving up to work with the first team is that a whole host of coaches at the club have moved up to work with the next age group up - and some of them seem to be out of their depths.
I'm intrigued to see how it all shapes up in the next couple of seasons.
