The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

[Loramski]

First under-21 game I've been able to get to this season, better late than never and a decent one to start with. An impressive showing all round (apart from some chaotic passing out from the back) and the comments on here have covered most of it, including the terrific fifth goal. Peterborough were poor and had three trialists in their line-up but that shouldn't take away from the positive performance.

As with the Academy last week, the u-21s basically have the same set-up as the first team. The full backs were taking up some interesting positions at times but on the whole we're playing the same system and that has to be a good thing as lads are moving up through the levels here. A mixture of u-18s and u-21s today but everyone knew what they were doing and even when players had to change position they knew what was expected.

One weird situation is that we have three excellent under-18 left backs here. I know there was talk earlier in the season of how to fit Giles and Beecher in the same team but Jac Thomas plays there too (and for Wales u-17s) so it'll be interesting to see how that situation resolves itself. I hadn't seen Beecher before and he was good today although the defence didn't get tested too much.

[the other bob wilson]

First under-21 game I've been able to get to this season, better late than never and a decent one to start with. An impressive showing all round (apart from some chaotic passing out from the back) and the comments on here have covered most of it, including the terrific fifth goal. Peterborough were poor and had three trialists in their line-up but that shouldn't take away from the positive performance.

As with the Academy last week, the u-21s basically have the same set-up as the first team. The full backs were taking up some interesting positions at times but on the whole we're playing the same system and that has to be a good thing as lads are moving up through the levels here. A mixture of u-18s and u-21s today but everyone knew what they were doing and even when players had to change position they knew what was expected.

One weird situation is that we have three excellent under-18 left backs here. I know there was talk earlier in the season of how to fit Giles and Beecher in the same team but Jac Thomas plays there too (and for Wales u-17s) so it'll be interesting to see how that situation resolves itself. I hadn't seen Beecher before and he was good today although the defence didn't get tested too much.

A couple of months ago, people were saying we only had Jamie Collins who could play left back, but with Pagan and Tom Davies to come back, it's going to be the position where, maybe, we have the most depth.

Not seen enough of Jac Thomas to comment on him really, but I was not surprised at the time when it was Beecher who got some game time in the League Cup tie at blackburn rather than Giles, who was also on the bench for that game. We were losing at the time and, from what I've seen, although Giles is very good from dead ball situations, Beecher is the better of the two when it comes to the attacking side of things - the injury which has kept him out for so much of this season has set him back a bit, but he's someone who's always impressed me.

Giles strikes me as the better defender of the two and it might be significant that he's been used in a back three at times by the under 21s , with natural left sided centre backs seemingly being like gold dust in the modern game, I can see him moving across to play there if he grows to be tall enough - that would solve the problem of which one of the two to play if they both turn out to be good enough.

Beecher is someone who could easily play as an inverted, forward thinking full back, but that might mean that we'd see less of his excellent crossing ability which I think of as the most impressive e part of his game currently. Talking of inverted full backs, I was so impressed yesterday with Kpakio on the right, he's a decent size already and looked a natural for the role whereby full backs are expected to spend more time in the opposition half than their own.