honeybradger

Sadly the trend has been Cifuentes phasing the youth players further and further away from the first team, not integrating them. There's no guarantee either way as you cant guarantee the future but for me Cifuentes is making a big mistake with the way he has handled the academy thus far.

The issue is that as we were reminded last game these senior players such as Faes, Vestergaard, Ayew, Kristiansen are both poor and inconsistent and are not necessarily the way forward to promotion. I would back us more to go up this season if we had Nelson in our backline who held his own against Leeds, Sunderland and Sheffield United last season and was consistently a 7-8/10 for Oxford than Faes who was dropped like a sack of potatoes by Iling Junior and has been inconsistent to consistently poor over his 3 years here. Cifuentes doesnt have a choice between promotion and blooding the youth, he has a choice between bravery and cowardice. He can continue to play the underperforming senior pros in hope that they sneak promotion, likely resulting in us falling short, or he can bring through the young players and inject some much needed energy and talent into this side. Sadly with the way things are going I think he will keep making the same mistakes and we will fall short at the end of the season having given the young players minimal game time.

You will always have fans waiting in the wings to jump on any bad performances from our academy players. Look at the reaction to Nelson's game against Huddersfield. Reasonable fans know that Nelson and the other academy lads are the way forwards, not the senior plonkers who have let us down again and again, and will forgive bad games knowing that these young players are worth supporting through rough patches.

He's played striker against Valencia and Spurs recently. Scored against Spurs but also missed a sitter. Didn't do much against Valencia but there were a couple times he lost his marker but didn't receive the ball in behind. Despite him not being in the best form at the moment id still rather have him up front than Ayew.

Needs to start banging them in for the u21s and force Cifuentes's hands. Realistically the striker position is still very open. Sadly it's easier said than done as he's not getting much service for the u21s, Aluko is the only creative player in the side and he's a right back.

So by your logic Kristiansen must be impressing in training more than Aluko. Kristiansen can hardly kick a ball straight whilst Aluko is brimming with individual quality. Either the people the players are trying to impress arent of the right standard or performances in training dont factor into it and it's mostly down to who's more senior in the dressing room. I find it interesting that some weeks the club post photos of the winners of an internal 7 aside game they do in training, often times it's not our first XI players who made up the winning side.

Playing Faes and Vestergaard over Nelson is just yet another poor decision from a club that have been on a terrible run of decision making for the last 5-6 years. When we talk about the decline of the club in 5 years time and how we cemented ourselves from PL regulars to championship regulars the lack of game time for Nelson this season and the academy in general will be one of the main talking points. We can talk about Rudkin's previous mismanagement over the last few years all we want but the club is still currently in a salvageable position, with the number one saving grace being the talent that is coming through the academy. Cifuentes is not utilising it nearly enough and is further continuing the clubs downwards trajectory by playing the same old suspects. You cant stop the rot if you build your starting XI around the rot.

Faes and Vestergaard do not guarantee promotion. This narrative that they are imperious at this level needs to stop, they weren't last time we were down we just had too much quality for their mistakes to punish us. Nelson is not only our future but he's our present, if we can get him to perform at the same form he had at Oxford he is our best defender.

It's more acceptable for Nelson to make errors because he's young and can learn from it. Faes and Vestergaard have been doing the same mistakes for us for 3 years now. This is just what they are.

We should have promoted Jake Evans, not been among the goals for the U21s recently but I still back his technical and finishing ability as well as decision making over any of our senior strikers.

The issue is that we were better off when Cifuentes didn't have a full squad to pick from. Kristiansen and BCDR (i know he got us a point but he was so bad otherwise) should be nowhere near us. We would be better off if Cifuentes didn't have all these bad players to pick from as he seems to love poor players.

The Wout Faes cycle: Doesn't start -> has to play, best defender we have -> starts -> he's a bombscare we have to drop him You would think we would have caught on as a fanbase by now that Faes can not start for us.

Monga is a ridiculous talent, giving him minutes is expected. Starting Page was a rug pull in order to get him to sign a new contract. Not the most academy friendly of practices.

Kristiansen being involved in place of Aluko tells me all I need to know about Cifuentes.

He's been our biggest bright spark this half. At least he's responded to the criticism well.

Get Faes out of this club

It's not about starting them every match, they dont even make the bench. Kristiansen making the bench ahead of Aluko, Cordova Reid making the bench over Page and Nelson not making the bench sends very clear message, Cifuentes will only use the academy players as a last resort. He is slowly phasing them further and further away from the first team after a succesful pre season where they showed they were at the level required.

Cifuentes has been a disaster for our academy. Let's hope he at least gets us promoted, with him not giving the young players a chance and going for a 'results now' approach it means he will get very little patience.

The argument that Nelson isnt ready to play for us doesnt hold any water. Coady has 2700 minutes played for us and compare his time at Wrexham to Nelson's time at Oxford. Coady has played himself out of the first XI at Wrexham due to sloppy performances whereas Nelson was an important part of a rock solid defence for Oxford at the end of last season, with good performances against teams like Leeds, Sheffield United and Sunderland who are all better than what we've faced so far this season. The thing is is that if Coady was still here you would have some fans arguing that he's somehow better than Nelson and deserves to be above him in the hierarchy.

He's also benefitting from playing with better players. We wasted him in a front 4 with Ayew, Cordova Reid and an old Vardy.

Yet Winks and Soumare had a similar number of progressive passes and key passes. Not sure how you can say one stat pads and not the other, both are very conservative with the ball and usually play the safest pass available instead of progressing up the pitch. I fully agree that Bouba becoming a regular in our side at this level is a sign of our demise and that he is made to look decent by the opposition being poor. The same goes to Winks though, both are decent midfielders at this level but that is a result of the opposition being poor more than anything else. I just find issue with reactions on here like Winks had an 8/10 performance and Soumare had a 4/10 performance. It's more that Winks was a 6.5/10 and Soumare was a 6.3/10, both serviceable and didn't do much wrong but didn't do much good either.

Centre back

At least this time you actually provided some reason instead of some crude statements. I disagree that he sped it up when needed, he's usually too slow on the ball and kills our attacks, same as Soumare. I used stats because we clearly have different opinions from watching the game, stats are just objective.

Yh, just a bunch of meaningless phrases that the zombies on here love to lap up. I provide stats and substance, you proved empty phrases like 'he's mustard at this level' 'he dictated the game' 'miles better than bouba'. All worthless phrases with no real meaning, weight or substantiation to them. You like most people dont know how to look past your own preconceived opinions of players. Probably not even your own opinion but based purely off what you read here. You see people coming on here to talk about how bad Soumare and Thomas were when they had a perfectly fine game and how class Winks was when he did ok. Just zombies regurgitating the same opinions.

Bunch of word jargon without actually saying much. Soumare 'dictated the game' against Coventry just as much as Winks. Saying anyone dictated the game when we werent much better than Coventry on the day is complete rubbish by the way. Soumare and Winks both completed a high number of passes, Winks 79, Soumare 58, both had a similar number of progressive pases Winks 8 soumare 7, similar number of long balls Winks 4, Soumare 5, similar number of key passes Winks 2, Soumare 3. I dont rate either by the way, but both are fine at this level. Winks just benefited from playing at a lower level for us in his first season and gained a better first impression with us by looking good against poor opposition. Soumare isnt rated because of how poor he was in the Premier League for us but Winks was also poor at that level and at this level there isnt much between them.