honeybradger

We're doing the same again with Ayew, Daka and Faes starting ahead of the academy options. We just start whoever has the highest wage.

I think you need a lot of top quality to win a cup competition and England's best U17 talents playing above their age group means i think England fall short in the knockout rounds. The last time england won they had Sancho, Foden, Hudson Odoi, Morgan Gibbs White, Skipp (lol), Guehi, Smith Rowe. That's probably half a billion in terms of talent nowadays.

Less than a year younger than Will Alves. Will Alves has experience on loan at championship level, England youth team call ups etc despite having an ACL injury and Heskey has none of that. Would have been a bizarre decision to loan Heskey instead of playing Alves, typical grass is greener syndrome.

Page missed a good chance to score but at least he is getting in the right positions. He had some very nice dribbling to get out of trouble as well. Will be interesting to see how he performs against the better opposition in this competition. I dont think England have a chance of winning with the likes of Dowman, Ngumohah and Monga playing at a higher age group.

I would move on both, 3 first team centre backs with an academy lad like Kevon Gray as emergency backup is enough imo.

I think the squad's bloated as it is and we wouldnt miss him if we sold him considering he has barely ever played for us. If we have an offer we would be silly not to take it and dont even need to replace him.

Motsi goal from the win over Birmingham U21.

If we have money on the table for Souttar from Sheffield United in January then surely we take it. Would be nice to have an aerially dominant defender but the money is probably worth more.

As product of 84 said being taken off on a stretcher isnt always a sign of a major injury. We've seen Ricardo play on through a major injury and others using the stretcher and being fine.

Didnt seem to be in significant pain, so hopefully not too serious. Might be back in action after international break?

Why does he have to earn his place with goals and assists when others get regular gametime and dont deliver that either. It's not like 1 goal 1 assist in 500 minutes is particularly bad for a winger either. Much prefer him to Ayew who is our current starting left winger, Monga actually offers some threat out wide.

The question is will he want to stay or will he have better options to progress his career elsewhere.

He can actually take on his man and pass the ball forward unlike Ayew. Has the second highest successful dribbles per 90 in the league behind Fatawu. Loses the ball when dribbling far less than Fatawu as well.

He is far better than Ayew and has generally played well. Standards are just higher for the academy lads for some reason whilst our experienced players get away with murder.

What did Monga do wrong? Was starting regularly then doesnt get off the bench anymore. It's not like he was at fault for the bad performances.

I wish every player could be Jordan James. What a man.

Fair point.

I cant imagine Ayew being out for a year and clamouring for him to be back in action.

It's Jordan James against Norwich today.

We're missing Ramsey really badly.

There is no reason to start Ayew over Monga. Just utter cowardice from Cifuentes.

Jake Evans's pre season is the new Ben Nelson first half vs Huddersfield. Evans was fine in pre season, just unspectacular and we have persisted with Carranza and Ayew through far worse performances. With our options up front being as bad as they are, if all players are treated equally Evans would be featuring for us.

I really hate Jordan Ayew as a football player, why does he keep getting picked by our managers.

Not really, my question was which players can you expect better performances from and in my opinion theyre all unreliable so you cant expect better. They all have been better at some point in their career but so have the likes of Soumare, Skipp, Thomas, Kristiansen, would you expect a new manager to come in and get them playing to their best (Ligue 1 winner, championship TOTY, FA cup winner, Serie A top 4). It's unrealistic to expect better performances under a new manager because the form our players showed once upon a time is the exception, not the rule in terms of their careers.

I think that bringing in a new manager to potentially bring better performances out of our senior players is not what we need. We need a long term plan and continuity, not to chop and change to try and get better performances out of a busted flush squad. If Cifuentes does what he says which is shift out the underperforming senior players to make room for the academy then that's much more preferable than bringing in a new manager to try and get a tune out of the likes of Wout Faes, Harry Winks etc. Cifuentes does have a history of not being truthful regarding his plans to integrate academy players but if he follows through with kicking off the much needed rebuild then that's much more important for the future of the club than hitting a purple patch under a new manager, which with this group of players is far from guaranteed.