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What a great series of resultsOriginally Posted by thehumblegringo
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Just to say that it's been confirmed on Twitter that the Development team game scheduled for tomorrow against Blackburn in the Premier League Cup will go ahead at Leckwith with a kick off time of 12 o clock.
It's a shame City didn't start playing till 12.15. They were 2-0 down by then and never looked like getting back into it, finished 3-0 but it could've been worse. A bit like some of the early season games today, five trialists playing and a few square pegs in round holes which made it chaotic to the point where it didn't seem fair on anyone (spectators included).What a great series of results
Just to say that it's been confirmed on Twitter that the Development team game scheduled for tomorrow against Blackburn in the Premier League Cup will go ahead at Leckwith with a kick off time of 12 o clock.
Trialist Corey Watson, who looks like a midfielder, started at centre back so centre half Connor Young started in centre mid. Once Watson had been bullied off the ball for their second goal they swapped places but the damage had been done. Another trialist, Michael Gyasi, couldn't get in the game on the right wing and both him and Watson were subbed at half time. Gyasi might have been happier in centre mid but Mark Harris was there, making no impression at all having looked good up front last week. Ogo Obi played up front this week and made no impression himself. Only in the last ten minutes did all our players find positions they looked comfortable with and we played some nice stuff then with Harris coming alive having moved forward.
I don't want to pre-empt TOBW's blog too much but there's definitely a big change in the style of play at that level. The playing out from the back and short passing moves have largely gone, there's a recognisable similarity between their style of play and the first team's which is logical I suppose. The problem today (not helped by a strong wind) was that the quick early balls from the back were terrible, Obi tried to make so many leads from off the shoulder of the last defender but no one could put the ball into the twenty yards of space ahead of him. Not that he did much when he got the ball but it's very hard for the front three to make any impact when the service is so poor.
Blackburn were excellent but it was a bad day at the office today. Paul McKay looked good at the back again, Abbruzzese and Coxe stuck at it but there was a lack of quality all round.
I'm not going to do a blog piece on yesterdays game because I'm going to be pretty busy all day.
I'm always not sure whether people say "excellent post" because they genuinely think it is very good or because they agree with it, so I'll just say that you've covered virtually everything I would have said there right down to Watson's struggles at centreback, Blackburn being good and your opinion on the style of play these days from the Under 23s.
Like you, I thought both full backs did pretty well under trying circumstances and I left thinking that if the pair of them do not even seem to be considered for the first team when we have five senior players in their position out with injuries, when will they ever be? If they are not in Neil Warnock's plans at all at this time in their development, is there any point in keeping them here?
I don't have the team sheet to hand at the moment, so I can't give you his name, but the trialist number eight quite impressed me - I hope he gets another chance with us.
Tom Walters. Did ok but it was a shocking pass from him that led to their third goal. Hard to judge anyone on yesterday's game though.
I agree with you about the full backs. I've said before that the Mansfield home game was the chance to give one of them a game but Warnock brought Bennett back in (even though the plan was to rest him) and said he had no choice. I was speculating yesterday how many of those two plus Veale, Harris and Waite will still be here next season. One, two at the most I reckon, we'll see. Ollie Byrne has already gone, to Blackburn. No sign of Meite lately. They obviously haven't finished the rebuilding at that level yet.
How do the under-18s set up these days, by the way? Any sign of them being made to play in a more direct style?
Sorry, I didn't see this until I went to post that message about today's game.
No, I can't say I've noticed a change of approach from the Under 18s, they still seek to build from the back, but it almost seems like a separate project from their seniors this season given that there appears to be no progression from it into the Development side, let alone the first team.
If there is such a thing as a six pointer at Development team level, then today's match with Ipswich is probably it - City were in the running for the end of season Play Offs in the last table I saw, but Ipswich were holding second spot behind runaway leaders Palace. According to the club website, there has been a change to the advertised venue - the match is down to take place at the Vale at 2 o clock.
2-1 win today which keeps us in the hunt for the 2nd play off spot. Here's the table, around eight games to go. Tough games coming up though.
https://www.flashscores.co.uk/footba...gue/standings/
Started with a kind of 4-1-4-1 formation today with Keenan Patten sitting and Mark Harris, Rhys Healey, Sion Spence and Jamie Ward behind Ogo Obi. Healey took an early knock which he tried to play through but only lasted 20 minutes. There was talk of it being a dead leg which seemed to interest Jamie Ward.
'Rhys, you're going off with a dead leg? You're soft as shit'
Unfortunately, Rhys wasn't in the mood to get on Ward's banter bus and went straight back to the changing room.
We were 2-0 up at half time, a nice shot on the turn from Mark Harris and a penalty from Obi. Nearly impossible to play any football in a gale force wind but we deserved the lead and were holding on comfortably enough until Jamie Veale, just back from injury, got hurt by a wild tackle which put us down to 10 men. We let in a goal near the end but held on.
Nice to see Patten and Spence there. Tough for Spence to make an impression but he did some good things, Obi should've scored from his set-up in the first half. Patten looked very tidy. Ward lasted around an hour before coming off, worked hard and seemed fit enough.
I was going to post this a few days ago but didn't. Does anyone actually think that these youngsters will get anywhere near the first team? We see these kind of articles every year and none of them seem to make any impression. Or is it more of WalesOnline posting articles for the sake of it?
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/...rdiff-14340162
Someone e-mailed me that a few days ago with a comment on how poorly researched it was - I agreed with him.
Margetson has played for Under 23s this season, but, generally speaking, has been unable to get a starting place in the Under 18 side most of the time - the same is true to a lesser extent with Wooton. Burwood played for the Under 23s yesterday, as did Spence, and seems to have established himself as first choice for the Under 18s recently, while I can remember seeing Bodenham play very well in his first match for the Under 23s about a year ago.
For me, Spence, who has scored twenty one times I think it is now for the Under 18s this season, is the one with the best chance among those five and he would have been a sub in our final game of last season up at Huddersfield if there had not been a problem with his insurance, but I don't think anyone who watches Under 18 football regularly would come up with those five names if they were asked who were the best young prospects at the club.
Thanks for the response, and it was exactly as I suspected. I got the same impression that the article wasn't entirely accurate or worthwhile. But I always get intrigued by these kind of articles as I'd love to see more youth development from the club.
I follow your blog posts about the U23s and U18s with keen interest, and often wonder when the next local talent will come along to break in to the first team.
I was completely baffled when I read the article Bob. If you haven't got a clue about a subject why would you write an article about it.
Here's my report on yesterday's Development team game.
http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/
Healey took a knock very early on. He tried to run it off but was limping noticeably and after a mistake which nearly led to a goal was taken off. He looked very unhappy, it's been a desperate 12 months for him.
It was a shame that Spence ended up playing wide in the second half, he doesn't look that comfortable there. With only three outfield subs it was going to be hard to keep everyone in a favoured position but having waited so long for a shot at the under-23s again, I'm sure Spence would've liked to have stayed more central. I thought they could've stuck Rowe out wide instead but I'm sure they had their reasons. As you said, it was hard to make any impression in those conditions so I guess it wouldn't have made much difference.
There's a match at Cardiff City Stadium tonight, the club's Twitter feed has confirmed that the Development team are playing Bolton,kick off 7 o clock.
3-0 loss tonight. Bolton are well clear in their league so not an unexpected result but there's very little positive to say about the game. We had a few players out but the trialists and youngsters who replaced them made little impression, we only had one shot on target in each half. James Waite had a terrific effort tipped over early in the second half and he was the stand-out performer but he had little support. Ridiculously cold, shame this game didn't get called off too.
Bolton reminded me of the Preston team that came here and won just after Christmas - poor, but still quite a bit better than us. I can remember reading somewhere that the Bolton team of the 50s were very much a "take no prisoners" outfit and it seems to me that many of their teams since then have had the same philosophy. Bolton weren't too particular about whether they played the man or the ball in the early stages and, to add to all of the other factors which made the match a really poor watch, there was also the fact that it never really flowed because of all the stoppages for fouls.
The longest stoppage came when Paul McKay was stretchered off with what looked like a bad injury - there was a foul by a Bolton player, but that was given for a tackle seconds after McKay was injured and, on just the one viewing, it doesn't look like the injury was caused by a poor challenge,
I've not looked up the names of the assortment of trialists on show yet, but I thought the number 10 looked pretty useful for a while before fading and the tiny number eleven looked to have some ability.
I agree completely with your summing up, Waite was our best player.
A quick update. Having lost three games in a row, 4-0, 3-0 and 3-0, the under-23s won two away games in three days last week, 3-0 at Colchester and 4-0 at Watford. A bizarre set of results and if you've been betting on both teams to score you're well out of pocket but it's good to see some goals going in for us. Mark Harris got two in the first game and Ogo Obi scored three over the two games. Ibrahim Meite is back and scored in the Watford game. The usual mix of trialists and regulars, still work in progress at that level.
A quick look at how some of our former youngsters are doing. The close season will see a lot of these lads move up and down the leagues and while none of them are playing at a higher level than us yet, there are a couple showing the potential to possibly do that at some point.
Ashley Baker has just signed a two and a half year contract extension at Sheffield Wednesday and is in line to make his first team debut before the end of the season. Tom James has made 49 appearances for Yeovil and seems set for a move in the summer. Semi Ajayi has made 39 appearances for Rotherham and they have made the League 1 play offs, Deji Oshilaja has been a regular in the AFC Wimbledon side and, in League 2, David Tutonda has established himself in the Barnet team as they battle against relegation.
Regan Poole has struggled on loan at Northampton and has dropped out of the picture there recently, Ben Nugent has made 27 appearances for Gillingham and Rollin Menayese has been playing for Swindon, on loan from Bristol Rovers (he was recently sent off at Newport). Josh Yorwerth has played 41 times for Crawley, keepers Luke O'Reilly and Ollie Byrne are at Spurs and Blackburn respectively, Eli Phipps is in Colchester's under-23 side & Marco Weymans is playing in Belgium's First Division B for Tubize.
In the National League, Luke Coulson has scored 10 in 46 from midfield for Ebbsfleet, Danny Johnson 13 in 36 for Gateshead while Tommy O'Sullivan has struggled to get games for Torquay, on loan from Colchester.
At the next level down, Theo Wharton has made little impact at York while Gethyn Hill has scored 18 for Weston Super Mare alongside Jarrad Welch, who has been playing regularly recently. Jazzi Barnum-Bobb is at play-off bound Chelmsford while Robbie Patten is at Chippenham. Hereford will be at that level too next season, Jamie Bird has been playing for them.
I'm sure there are others I've forgotten (or can't track down), stick your own ones up if you think of any.
Not a former player but Rhys Healey scored on his loan debut for Torquay before being sent off in a subsequent game.
I'm also curious to know how Tyrone Duffus is doing at Hereford. He looked good for our U23's and started well at Hereford but I think was injured early in his loan spell.
Duffus went back to Hereford having recovered from a hamstring injury but went off after half an hour of his comeback game, a knee injury I think. I saw him on crutches at the CCS in January so I assume his season was over then. I agree with you, he did look good for us and I'd like to think he'll be back here next season.
I mentioned Rhys Healey on here the other night. He got a hat-trick on Tuesday in a shambolic Torquay home defeat against Guiseley, who had a player sent off after 3 minutes but still won 4-3. Rhys was described as admirable but then I've never seen a bad word said about him as a player or a person during any of his loan spells. Of course he should be scoring at that level but he always applies himself wherever he goes and seems to earn a lot of respect. I pointed out that he's now played in the top five divisions (as well as the Scottish and Welsh Premier Leagues) but, largely due to his injuries, we're still not quite sure what his level is. He deserves some luck, hopefully he'll push on next season.
I see Baker was an unused sub at Wolves for Sheffield Wednesday yesterday - hopefully, he'll get some game time next week.
Apparently that's eight times across the season that he's made the bench for a Wednesday league game which would suggest he isn't merely making the bench because of a rare collection of injuries. He's also just signed a two and a half year contract extension.
Did you feel we let him go too early? Or has he merely bloomed since leaving us?
Maybe we didn't let him go, it might be that Wednesday offered him a better deal? If it was our decision not to offer him a new contract, then I'm surprised, because I always thought he was among the best players in that particular group of Academy youngsters.
His talent is to be honest irrelevant.
The question is how many would be above him with regards to playing in the first team; I recall he's more a right back so Peltier, Manga, Richards etc. It's silly to keep someone on just for the sake of it.
EDIT: Loramski's post from 26th April just shows the club have been effectively right in releasing players we have, regards of people's views on them.
It shows there's a vast gulf between Academy levels and real football.
How many Academy games do you get to watch?
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