Bringing on the kids

If somethings worth getting trolled i'll be the first there but on this occasion, as i said before the game, it was the right decision to play the youth players, although in reality he had no choice. He wasn't going to risk any of the starting eleven that played on Saturday when the league campaign hasn't even started. Nothing there creative wise and the waste of free kicks was a concern, what i did like was a continuation of the formation we lined up with on Saturday albeit with different personnel. Hopefully this will continue and we see settle in to a style of play where swapping players due to fatigue and injury will see little disruption to how the players fit the system.

 

Heaven forbid mate, that sounds like a plan

 

A lot of clubs adopt that approach, where all youth teams play the same style and formation as the first team.

 

I'm guessing forced on us rather than planned. Not all four of the young players that have come through will make it, the law of averages dictates that, just need one or two of them to make the grade to justify extra funding toward the youth development. As a long term strategy its the only way lower league clubs will survive.

 

Yeahy its not rocket science. It means tailoring your transfer strategy and youth development to produce the right sort of recruit rather than just looking at names available and their individual stats.

 

I honestly think it's a positive from the Salary Cap and Squad Limits. I'd make another change though and scrap or modify the EPPP to stop PL clubs hoovering up players on the cheap

 

Something had to be done for the long term future of lower league football, although because of the growing disparity between the top two and bottom two divisions i could , years down the line, see some sort of break away between the top and bottom two divisions. Maybe even regionalised league structures in league 1 and 2.

 

And the plus side of bringing youngsters through is, if like Watkins at Exeter, you sell him for £1.8 million and then have a £6 million add on clause when he signs for a PL club!

 

Can never answer this but would Watkins have got his move if he had signed up to a premiership side at the age of 16?