Get the kids in, Get the kids in...........

[Free Falling Foxes]

Oh FFS Division Three isn't a fecking nursery.

I've never understood this 'It's a chance to rebuild' mentality when teams go down.

Opposing teams aren't going to roll over especially when they come to the Walkers. That division is tough, full of hard buggers who'll kick lumps out of you. I know some of ours have been on loan there and done well but they would have had some experienced hard men with them.

Listening to the moan-in, some callers would have a majority of our team as kids.

We've got to bring them through true but we can't rely on them.

[davieG]

On the other hand let's never ever play a youngster again unless of course there someone else's on loan.

Do you think that they don't come across some of these hard men playing for the reserves

[Guest]

Actually I think it would be the best time to bring in the kids. The supposed more experienced players haven't exactly done themselves any justice, and if we can bring the young uns in now, and establish a settled team/squad, they should be more mature and able to cope with life in the Championship, when we are promoted.

[SamL]

Are you Thracian in disguise?

The kids would do better than the bunch of overpaid twats we've got at the moment.

[maddog]

On the other hand let's never ever play a youngster again unless of course there someone else's on loan.

Do you think that they don't come across some of these hard men playing for the reserves

Yes Davie the boat is back

[Free Falling Foxes]

On the other hand let's never ever play a youngster again unless of course there someone else's on loan.

Do you think that they don't come across some of these hard men playing for the reserves

Read the last line of my OP

[The Reverend]

Try the kids. It's the only thing we havent ****ing done.

If it works - brilliant!

If it doesnt - at least it'll shut Thracian up!

[davieG]

Read the last line of my OP

Exactly - I'd sooner rely on them than all the under performing experienced couldn't give a fook players that we''ve had to endure for the last 4 years.

Not that anyone has said only use the kids that I've heard.

[Finnegan]

BALANCE.

You need youth as much as you need experience. A bit of hunger, a bit of exuberance and a bit of rebuilding will go a long, long way. But anyone expecting us to field a largely accademy side and climb back into the Championship is a blithering idiot. The obvious Thracian gags have been popped already but I highly doubt even he'd condone the fielding of a side entirely devised of youngsters.

One of the most startling things in the side this year has been the overall lack of leadership. Now I'm not saying leaders, characters, have to exclusively be older, broken veterans - but nor will I overlook examples like Arsenal that proved this season that when the going gets tough, teams that WIN things will generally need a number of hard, grafting characters to bash heads together and get the job finished.

I don't want to spend half a decade "rebuilding" in League One and neither does one Mr. Milan Mandaric. We want balance, balance, balance.

[The Reverend]

BALANCE.

You need youth as much as you need experience. A bit of hunger, a bit of exuberance and a bit of rebuilding will go a long, long way. But anyone expecting us to field a largely accademy side and climb back into the Championship is a blithering idiot. The obvious Thracian gags have been popped already but I highly doubt even he'd condone the fielding of a side entirely devised of youngsters.

One of the most startling things in the side this year has been the overall lack of leadership. Now I'm not saying leaders, characters, have to exclusively be older, broken veterans - but nor will I overlook examples like Arsenal that proved this season that when the going gets tough, teams that WIN things will generally need a number of hard, grafting characters to bash heads together and get the job finished.

I don't want to spend half a decade "rebuilding" in League One and neither does one Mr. Milan Mandaric. We want balance, balance, balance.

Thread closed.

[Corky]

BALANCE.

You need youth as much as you need experience. A bit of hunger, a bit of exuberance and a bit of rebuilding will go a long, long way. But anyone expecting us to field a largely accademy side and climb back into the Championship is a blithering idiot. The obvious Thracian gags have been popped already but I highly doubt even he'd condone the fielding of a side entirely devised of youngsters.

One of the most startling things in the side this year has been the overall lack of leadership. Now I'm not saying leaders, characters, have to exclusively be older, broken veterans - but nor will I overlook examples like Arsenal that proved this season that when the going gets tough, teams that WIN things will generally need a number of hard, grafting characters to bash heads together and get the job finished.

I don't want to spend half a decade "rebuilding" in League One and neither does one Mr. Milan Mandaric. We want balance, balance, balance.

:thumbsup:

[davieG]

BALANCE.

You need youth as much as you need experience. A bit of hunger, a bit of exuberance and a bit of rebuilding will go a long, long way. But anyone expecting us to field a largely accademy side and climb back into the Championship is a blithering idiot. The obvious Thracian gags have been popped already but I highly doubt even he'd condone the fielding of a side entirely devised of youngsters.

One of the most startling things in the side this year has been the overall lack of leadership. Now I'm not saying leaders, characters, have to exclusively be older, broken veterans - but nor will I overlook examples like Arsenal that proved this season that when the going gets tough, teams that WIN things will generally need a number of hard, grafting characters to bash heads together and get the job finished.

I don't want to spend half a decade "rebuilding" in League One and neither does one Mr. Milan Mandaric. We want balance, balance, balance.

And the reason people are suggesting the kids is because we've never had that balance for at least 4 years, it's always been a case of 'now's not the time to play the kids' absolute bollocks, if we'd have had a few of them in the team, like Stearman over the last 4 years they'd no longer be considered kids despite being young.

Now is the time to redress the balance and actually play some kids for a sustained period and to blood as many of the others as possible.

[Finnegan]

And the reason people are suggesting the kids is because we've never had that balance for at least 4 years, it's always been a case of 'now's not the time to play the kids' absolute bollocks, if we'd have had a few of them in the team, like Stearman over the last 4 years they'd no longer be considered kids despite being young.

Now is the time to redress the balance and actually play some kids for a sustained period and to blood as many of the others as possible.

Yes. "Some" kids. It is a perfect opportunity to give the Gradels, the Chambers and the Sappletons of this world a dig at first-team football. But rolling out the kiddies and taking our foot off the gas now is the worst timing imaginable.

There are people about who largely seem to think we're some broken, depleted husk of a club that won't see decent football again this side of 2050. It's bollocks.

Give him a week or so to recover and Madaric will be back spouting his three-year-plan jibberish like ever before and bringing in players he believes will take us instantly back up and that's exactly the policy I'd preach. The longer you stay in League One, the more the rot of obscurity seems to stick. I'd much rather achieve mid-table Championship obscurity and THEN go tinkering with untried youngsters than waste a season or two banking on our kiddies in the lower leagues just because in our arrogant complacency we've dubbed it some mega-inferior division.

If we thought the Championship was a physically demanding league we've seen nothing yet.

[filbertway]

Youth players I would try and give a good go next season are;

Chambers

King

Mattock (is he still classed as one?)

Weso (same thing )

Beswick

Sapps

Gradel

[Thracian]

Oh FFS Division Three isn't a fecking nursery.

I've never understood this 'It's a chance to rebuild' mentality when teams go down.

Opposing teams aren't going to roll over especially when they come to the Walkers. That division is tough, full of hard buggers who'll kick lumps out of you. I know some of ours have been on loan there and done well but they would have had some experienced hard men with them.

Listening to the moan-in, some callers would have a majority of our team as kids.

We've got to bring them through true but we can't rely on them.

Not like we can rely on the experienced hands, eh!

This shit about how tough the Championship was and how tough Division One is doesn't wash with me.

Modern football can be fast. But tough?

Some players might be hard as nails but the referees ensure that they can only behave like fairies.

Every time a player goes down now it's a foul for some obscure reason or another.

Giants get in the way of an opponents heavy breathing and go down with three forward rolls and a blood-curdling scream of agony.

Anyone thinking you can whack the opposition into submission these days is still sailing on Noah's Ark.

I'm supposed to be the old un round here but I'm up to date enough to know that nowadays you need the fastest, most skillful forwards you can get and you need to be in that opposition penalty box as much as possible so that all these bouncers you mention can take a kick at you.

Who needs to shoot and score when you can win on penalties?

Even promoted Championship side Stoke looked duff in defence to me. Fast players using width and attacking in numbers could have ripped them to pieces.

I'm damned sure the defenders would be no better in Division One.

Wasn't it people on here said Sheehan was a shit defender. Well he helped Leeds keep six successive clean sheets which doesn't suggest to me that Division One attackers are anything special.

We make things hard for ourselves by believing in myths.

You send the likes of Gradel, Hammond, Hume, Fryatt and Porter flying at Division One defences for any length of time and see how sodding good they are.

[Guest]

You send the likes of Gradel, Hammond, Hume, Fryatt and Porter flying at Division One defences for any length of time and see how sodding good they are.

Shouldn't we wait and see if Porter manages to come back from his injury first?

As for Fryatt flying, only when he jets off on holiday, I suspect!

[Guest shearfox]

I hope we can keep Stearman and Mattock, I think we are good for a midfield with weso, gradel, bell and king and I can't see Fryatt going anywhere and he should be good for League one. Worley also looks good so I think we should go straight back up next season even if we lost a host of players like Hume, Kisnorbo, McAuley, Oakley ect...

[Finnegan]

I think you somewhat miss the point when people talk about the physicality of lower-league football. It's not really about kicking someone straight off the park, that goes on at every level, it's more about the literal physical strength of the opposition you face. How many times has our relatively small-side been completely out muscled over the last few years by the likes of Preston, Stoke and even Derby with big, burly defenses?

How effective has the "speed and skill" of, say, DJ Campbell really been when he's being frequently out-shoved by some twenty foot leviathan shielding the ball?

And how likely to aid that situation will a team full of skinny-boys like King, Porter (recovery permitted) Gradel and co' be? Don't get me wrong, I'm genuinely appealing for - as I've said - balance, here. I want to see these boys given an opportunity. I'm certainly very excited about Gradel, Porter, Mattock and I even think Andy King if he's given a chance at this level. I'm just calling for a bit of level-headedness and some common sense, here. We clearly aren't juts going to roll out the academy side and it clearly wouldn't be constructive if we did.

[davieG]

Yes. "Some" kids. It is a perfect opportunity to give the Gradels, the Chambers and the Sappletons of this world a dig at first-team football. But rolling out the kiddies and taking our foot off the gas now is the worst timing imaginable.

There are people about who largely seem to think we're some broken, depleted husk of a club that won't see decent football again this side of 2050. It's bollocks.

Give him a week or so to recover and Madaric will be back spouting his three-year-plan jibberish like ever before and bringing in players he believes will take us instantly back up and that's exactly the policy I'd preach. The longer you stay in League One, the more the rot of obscurity seems to stick. I'd much rather achieve mid-table Championship obscurity and THEN go tinkering with untried youngsters than waste a season or two banking on our kiddies in the lower leagues just because in our arrogant complacency we've dubbed it some mega-inferior division.

If we thought the Championship was a physically demanding league we've seen nothing yet.

I don't think we disagree but filling the team with experience didn't even save us from relegation, mid table security for us would've been like some orgasmic dream. I'm just saying I've not seen anyone suggest that we should fill the team with kids, but there's been many an occasion when filling it with experience has been the preferred option - no balance in sight.

[Father Ted]

Youth players I would try and give a good go next season are;

Chambers

King

Mattock (is he still classed as one?)

Weso (same thing )

Beswick

Sapps

Gradel

Add Cox, Dodds and Worley to the list

And Porter if you still class him as a kid

[Basingstoke Fox]

I don't think we disagree but filling the team with experience didn't even save us from relegation, mid table security for us would've been like some orgasmic dream. I'm just saying I've not seen anyone suggest that we should fill the team with kids, but there's been many an occasion when filling it with experience has been the preferred option - no balance in sight.

That's a right fooking mess we've got ourselves into you OLLIE!

[Thracian]

Shouldn't we wait and see if Porter manages to come back from his injury first?

As for Fryatt flying, only when he jets off on holiday, I suspect!

That's why I mentioned Beswick as an alternative.

As for the "flying" it was a collective image I was trying to convey and Fryatt wouldn't have to fly far - cos he wouldn't be messing around in places that didn't matter.

People like Hume and Hammond love running but Fryatt needs to let his brain rather than his body take the strain. Like a lesser man's Teddy Sheringham really.

But I'm quite sure Matty would be good for 15 goals a season in Division One.

[Thracian]

BALANCE.

You need youth as much as you need experience. A bit of hunger, a bit of exuberance and a bit of rebuilding will go a long, long way. But anyone expecting us to field a largely accademy side and climb back into the Championship is a blithering idiot. The obvious Thracian gags have been popped already but I highly doubt even he'd condone the fielding of a side entirely devised of youngsters.

One of the most startling things in the side this year has been the overall lack of leadership. Now I'm not saying leaders, characters, have to exclusively be older, broken veterans - but nor will I overlook examples like Arsenal that proved this season that when the going gets tough, teams that WIN things will generally need a number of hard, grafting characters to bash heads together and get the job finished.

I don't want to spend half a decade "rebuilding" in League One and neither does one Mr. Milan Mandaric. We want balance, balance, balance.

Our best "older" leader I've seen at City this season is Kishishev, and he's never had a look in.

Whether he's so far gone he's beyond saving for first team football I don't know but he's always seemed to have a rapport with the young players when I've seen him play in the reserves.

He prompts and cajoles but always in a complimentary way and sets a brilliant example in how to make space and win a bit of time. He's also a very positive player, forever trying to make things happen with a clever pass or by taking corners and free-kicks.

I'd never see him as a 90-minute man but maybe he could play a part wither as a player but, if not, then as a coach.

[FleckneyFox]

This is why i reckon we should sign someone like Darren Moore, realistic signing we've been linked with him before big bruiser of a centre half, would be perfect for League 1

[Thracian]

Add Cox, Dodds and Worley to the list

And Porter if you still class him as a kid

And why no mention of Billy McKay?

While Sappzilla's knocking his goals in who do you think is helping Kingy and Beswick do the spacework required to create those chances? Billy McKay.

The bloke just never stops. He makes the runs, sees the passes, delivers em simply and has a sharp eye for goal too.

He's another like Beswick who must be a real pleasure to play alongside because if you make a run McKay will do his level best to find you with an early pass.

Whether he'll ever be quite big enough or strong enough to be a number 9 I doubt but as a visionary player just behind the main striker or front two, he'll always create things.