The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

[the other bob wilson]

Great report.

Who was the player singled out for praise from Warnock by the way? Welch or Harris?

I haven't had much of a chance to see Welch, but encouraging to read your reports. What mould of player would you say he is at this stage?

Thanks.

Mark Harris is the Academy player Neil Warnock has mentioned once or twice in public.

As for Welch, he was playing in a deep lying quarterback type role in the early weeks of the season, but I felt quite sorry for him then, because the full backs were forever bombing forward and we were often left with him and the two centrebacks trying to cope with three or four opposing attackers running at them on the counter attack.

In recent games though, Scott Young's boy has been playing as a defensive midfielder who keeps things pretty simple (much of the time he just passes to Welch when he gets the ball). This has enabled Welch to play a bit further upfield - he still doesn't tend to venture too far forward, but there has been an improvement in team and his personal performance since then.

When he was playing so deep, Welch used to try a lot of long, aerial balls that looked great when they came off, but there were many times when he was just giving the ball back to the opposition. Playing ten or fifteen yards further up the pitch, still gives him scope to play what I call "Hollywood" passes, but he mixes things up more now and I was particularly impressed on Saturday by how good he was at playing perfectly weighted passes of about twenty yards or so inside the wurzels' full backs for our wingers or full backs to run on to - Saturday was possibly as good a game as I seen him have for the Under 18s and, if Harris is probably the one in the Under 18 squad closest to making a first team debut, I'd say Welch is second closest.