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Good to see u23s get off mark
I was slightly surprised to see he was still here at the start of the season. 21 now and 4th choice at left back, he wouldn't even have been first choice at under-23 level, so I'm not sure what the plan was for him but he's suddenly found himself in a good position here and he didn't do himself any harm today either. It will be interesting to see what happens with Bagan and Martin in January if Bennett and Cunningham are both fit again.Originally Posted by the other bob wilson
To me it would make sense to see where we are come January. If we have a realistic shout of the playoffs, and Bagan and/or Martin aren't showing enough consistency yet at left back then by all means bring Cunningham or Bennett back in.
If we are looking consigned to mid-table obscurity, then that would seem to be the ideal time to bring the youngsters through. They are both out of contract in the summer, and probably on large wages for us, both having been with us in the premier league.
If we could get one of them up to first team level and the other a capable understudy then that would be ideal as it's be a huge chunk off the wage bill, and one less position to have to address in the summer.
The thing about the Championship is that there is rarely a season with many 'dead' games. We've got a bit of time on our side with Bagan, he's just turned 19 so there's no rush to decide whether he's going to stay at left back or go back to centre-half, no big worry if he has a bad patch or picks up an injury. We should be able to bring him through at a pace that suits both him and the club.
Martin presents a different issue. 21 but still hasn't played above the 6th tier so we can't be sure where we are with him. His third season here so presumably the club see some potential but, as we found with Ajayi, it can be tricky to establish how good players are, and how long you wait to find out, when they're still waiting for any kind of breakthrough at that age and good players are standing in their way here.
Martin is an eye catching player, runs up and down his touchline all game but so did Declan John, David Tutonda and Cameron Coxe, among others, before him. Morison and Harris will have a good idea of his level but would surely want more proof of it before they throw him straight into a Championship game. They could be an injury to Bagan away from being forced to though.
you've got to make time for bringing players through or otherwise it just doesn't happen.
if we aren't going to be brave and risk them now and again, and accept we will lose the odd game due to inexperience as they develop then we may as well get rid of the academy altogether.
Bagan has had these 2 games because we have 2 senior players injured at the same time. when they're fit we will see whether we genuinely have any appetite to bring through youth at this club.
I'd say Bagan has had two seven out of ten games in the last week. Would a "senior" player hold on to their place if they had come in because of injuries and produced the exact same pair of performances that Bagan has? I suspect they would.
Agreed. How would you resolve the left back situation here in January assuming all of them are fit?
Not much to add to what you and Rjk said really. I'd say one at most out of Bennett and Cunningham will be here next season and it may be neither if they both continue to miss games with injury. What we've seen of Bagan in the first team so far suggests that it could be possible come January to look at him and say I want him to be our first choice left back from now on, but I think it's unlikely because, as you say, it is such a rarity to have time at the end of the season to "build for the future" and that time would certainly not start in January!
As for Martin, I think he could definitely be loaned out to a club in, say, League Two if he continues to perform like he did yesterday, but, despite the talk of our first team wanting to play differently, I don't see much evidence yet of us wanting to use Martin type players at full back - I was struck by how much Bacuna got into the Boro penalty area on Saturday after he came on and I think Osei-Tutu may become more attacking in his outlook once he's more settled here, but, for now, I'm not seeing too much difference in our full back play to recent seasons.
It was interesting to hear Mourinho after the Burnley game the other night. He said he wanted to push for the win and was thinking of bringing Reguilon on but was worried about losing the defensive qualities that Ben Davies brings. I guess that's the permanent dilemma that a manager faces and while Harris is talking about the idea of 'explosive' full backs he's still wary of committing to it for now.
It's difficult to see a Route for Harris into the side at the moment, we play 1 up top most of the time. If Moore gets injured we'll play Glatzel - then at some point Vassell will be back as well (maybe).
For D'Almeida we've got 4 "central midfielders" in Vaulks, Pack, Ralls and Bacuna, and we have 2 or 3 of them on the pitch at the same time, so agin we are likely to be waiting for at least one probably 2 being out injured to even make a bench.
If we hadn't had 2 left backs and a right back out injured at the same time then Bagan would probably not had his chance. It shouldn't be any wonder that we never bring any players through if we rely on a freak injury crisis to be able to give them game time.
I'd say 6/10 in first game and 8/10 in second game. A senior player wouldn't lose their place but maybe a younger player would be better served by three or four games then taking a rest to ensure confidence high and has time to study tape/correct things before opponents are able to start to pick on the parts of his game needing more development?
Decide which one of Bennett and Cunningham we're more likely to offer a new contract. Make the other one available for loan or a cut-price transfer. Send Bagan out on loan if we don't get any takers.
Think Harris would do well in the role Glatzel played against Boro. Long ol' season so would hope Moore gets rested at some point and either Glatzel and Harris tried or Harris off the bench as seen this past weekend. As harsh as it sounds, wouldn't it be better to develop Harris than waiting for Vassell's injury record to turn?
I struggle to understand how anyone can claim that they way we use our fullbacks hasn't changed since Harris took over. At the start of last season we had Bennett and Peltier rarely moving beyond the halfway line. Now our fullbacks play much higher up the pitch, make overlapping runs and deliver crosses into the opposition penalty area.
well im bang wrong about Harris it seems
I definitely think this is the plan but it's a bit half-hearted for now. I didn't pay particular attention to it last night but I don't remember many overlapping (or underlapping) runs from full back positions nor dangerous balls coming in. The odd thing was that we were deliberately setting up with Pack dropping in between the centre backs when we had possession, sometimes Ralls or Vaulks too, as if to say to the full backs 'you push on, we've got you covered' so I'm not quite sure why it wasn't happening.
My guess would be that the full backs are wary for a couple of reasons. Any run into space is likely to be fruitless because none of the above mentioned players are going to be able to find them with a cross-field pass, or any pass for that matter. The chances of them holding onto any sort of possession aren't great (Ralls' part in their goal, for example) so it would be understandable if the full backs are thinking a 50 yard burst forward is likely to be quickly followed by a u-turn and a 50 yard sprint back. If, by some chance, the ball does reach them, what are they going to find when they look up? No one to link with and Moore and maybe one other in the box marked by 4 or 5 defenders.
I think it's one of a number of examples where we're getting caught between two stools. Wanting to adapt the style of play but not quite having either the personnel or the confidence to fully commit to it.
It would be completely ridiculous to compare DVP level football to the Championship, of course, but I'm going to do it anyway. It makes my waffling relevant to this thread if nothing else. Here's James Waite's 40 pass goal from a while back. Note Ajayi's long passing, also the fact that Waite pops up a number of times between our centre backs but also makes the run into the box to score the goal. Both of these things, plus the availability of players to link with, make it well worth the fireball overlapping right back (Greg Halford) getting forward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4557bLrXRQ
Decide who's cheaper. I think you could get decent money for Bennett even in January with 6 months left on his deal, I'm not sure you could get anyone to take Cunningham given his injury record over the last 4/5 seasons.
Taz Mayembe back for the under 18s today in their home game with Coventry which kicked off at 11.30.
City's Academy team have got into the habit of losing games they were winning at half time, but they've just scored three times in ten minutes to go three up against Coventry through Caleb Hughes with a penalty, Siyabonga Ligendza and Taylor Jones - surely the trend of recent matches ends today?
A goal back for Coventry with a penalty o n the hour mark, but a last minute goal by Mayembe secures the win - the first victory for the Under 18s since their opening game and both of their victories this season have been by 4-1.
Only just noticed that a City Under 23 side including Tavio D'Almeida and Jack Bodenham were beaten by a penalty in the last ten minutes to nil at Crewe yesterday - just three points from six games for them then.
The Under 18s have just kicked off in a tough looking game at Forest - no news of any goals yet.
3-0 Forest at half-time
6 - 2 at F-T. Ouch.
I can only put our poor Academy results down to me not being there to give them inspiration
In their defence, there are a lot of players in this year's team who are having their first season at this level and they have been missing the player who is probably their biggest match winner, Taz Mayembe, for most of the time because of injury.
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