honeybradger

We dont have any PL quality. Not even Fatawu at this point in time.

Not much you can do when subbed off at 56 minutes whilst playing as a 10 in this system which is pretty isolated. Will be interesting when Ramsey is back, not sure he is going to fare much better.

I remember the first year after we signed Fofana his old teammate Saliba was struggling in the Arsenal U21s. There was a debate over whether we had signed the better centreback despite the French saying Saliba was better. It's interesting that one was one of the best centrebacks in the premier league that season and one was struggling to impress in youth football, yet the one struggling at youth level was actually the better player. Just goes to show how much of a talent drain getting dropped to the u21s is, if an elite player like Saliba can struggle that badly you can only imagine how it has/will affect Page.

It's fairly simple he should leave out BCDR, Kristiansen, Daka to make way for 2-3 of Aluko, Nelson, Page, Evans. Those first 3 dont contribute much anyway.

So what i said is correct that the academy players have been pushed further away from the matchday squad than when the season started. It's not just for the new signings either it's for duffers like Kristiansen and Cordova Reid (yes he did get us the point the other day but still a duffer). It's not hard to understand why i think it's dubious that Cifuentes will integrate the young players over the season considering his decision making implies the opposite.

James Trafford was dropped for Muric by Burnley in 23/24 in the PL. Muric was a catastrophe for Ipswich so getting benched by him is impressive. He then had a good season at championship level in 24/25. He was then swiftly replaced at Premier League level by Man City after a couple blunders. Stolarczyk was fine when we were in the PL last time, there's no guarantee that if we go up someone like Trafford doesn't commit the same errors that Stolarczyk gets blasted for. Trafford's record at that level is actually very spotty.

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.