Why bother naming the youths on the bench?

viv_andersons_nana

viv_andersons_nana

Well-known member
Week after week after week we see a handful of youngsters named on the bench. They never come on. Even with the first team decimated by injuries and treading water in the second tier. What’s the point in making them pack up their kit and travel to matches if they’re never given even so much as a minute of football?

It’s not as if we’re doing well and places are at a premium. We’re treading water. If they’re not good enough to play, don’t name them on the bench.
 
I'm keen to see some of our youth players get game time too. But it's all part of the process. If they are good enough, they'll get time
 
Said the same on the match thread, got jumped on after Gilbert gets the assist 😅

Fair enough, would still like to see one of them get a go before the season finishes. All of the injuries we’ve had, you’d think one would get a run out.
 
asredastheycome said:
All part of getting them involved in first team matchday experience.
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Exactly this. It's not the time to bring them on when it's tight and you are trying to get something out of the game. If you are winning comfortably the you do it, otherwise you stick with experience whilst there is still a possibility (remote that it is) of getting into the paly offs.
 
I'd imagine that Carrick is better served than us as to judge who's ready to step up. It's eminently possible that they aren't ready, but they are on the bench for the experience.
Cavanaugh didn't look that comfortable when he had a few appearances and most fans would have had him down as the one most likely to make the 1st team squad.
 
They need to be playing games, getting touches, developing their actual football skills. There should be more games to play. Actual football matches. What are they developing by travelling around in a tracksuit getting on and off an executive coach?

To my mind it’s coming across as lip service to the academy. People go on about you can’t ’risk’ them yet, there’s stuff on the line, and yet the seniors above them in the pecking order have us sitting in the middle of the second tier with no chance of going up this season.

We’ve got a threadbare first-team squad, another load of loans, a team full of holes, 10th in division two, and yet not a single youth team player is worthy of even 10 minutes. I think there needs to be a look at what’s happening in our academy because if we’re not able to use it during injury crises of the kind we’ve had this season then there’s something wrong.

What are we actually producing if they’re not deemed good enough for where we are now? Aren’t we a category 1 academy? Where are the players? There’s a disconnect somewhere along the line imo.
 
I would think that a modern pro football club would sit those lads down for a debrief on what they actually saw from the bench.

If they can understand what they were watching and how they would slot into the game plan, then they would be capable of actually coming on and not being a liability.

Similar reasons to why Schwarzer is a decent pundit: he spent a few seasons in the twilight years of his career on the bench with lots of coaches hearing their real time analysis of games.
 
The season is pretty much done. Clearly we want to end the season with as many points as possible.

Yet we are a mid table team who can go into the final few games 'pressure off'. I'd certainly like to see one or two feature more. Especially at the expense of one or two of the loan signings. If we've genuinely got no intention of signing them or having them back next season.

I would say I'd definitely play one ahead of Greenwood. He was woeful yesterday. Also continously leaves Engel out to dry on the left hand side. I'd give Gilbert or Silvera a runout ahead of him.
 
I also think blooding a handful of them now will encourage clubs in League One and Two take them on loan next season and actually play them. If a League One manager sees Carrick trusting them then it makes it easier for them to trust them too. The pathway just seems almost non-existent to me at the moment. We’ve got a batch of kids on the fringes now but how are they going to progress if they don’t play any football. Sitting on the bench for weeks on end teaches them very little in the grand scheme of things.

As I said, if they’re not good enough to get even 15-20 minutes when we’re treading water in the second division, then what on earth is our prized category 1 academy actually producing?
 
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