Academy & U21s

[BankEnd Rover]

Siggy lacks pace for me but he has good vision and reads the game well (when attacking). The first goal last night is a prime example of that - I imagine him and Chrisene will link up well.

[Torgeir]

4 hours ago, arbitro said:

Of course they should be up for it, any player should. It's just that they wouldn't figure in my starting eleven as I believe we have better. I'm certain that Tomasson won't be taking Wrexham lightly irrespective of what league they are in.

What's 'your' strongest eleven currently?

[arbitro]

9 hours ago, Torgeir said:

What's 'your' strongest eleven currently?

Pears, JRC, Hyam, Wharton S, Chrisene, Tronstad, Wharton A, Garrett, Dolan, Gallagher, Szmodics.

 

[wilsdenrover]

1 hour ago, arbitro said:

Pears, JRC, Hyam, Wharton S, Chrisene, Tronstad, Wharton A, Garrett, Dolan, Gallagher, Szmodics.

 

Szmodics up front? (I’m not disagreeing, I’m just checking)

[rigger]

1 hour ago, arbitro said:

Pears, JRC, Hyam, Wharton S, Chrisene, Tronstad, Wharton A, Garrett, Dolan, Gallagher, Szmodics.

 

personally I don't see Dolan in our strongest eleven. But it is all about opinions.

[arbitro]

59 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

Szmodics up front? (I’m not disagreeing, I’m just checking)

I have just listed what I think is the strongest starting eleven in no particular order. With those available it would be 4-2-3-1.

[Exiled_Rover]

18 hours ago, BankEnd Rover said:

Siggy lacks pace for me but he has good vision and reads the game well (when attacking). The first goal last night is a prime example of that - I imagine him and Chrisene will link up well.

Which is why he's a #10. We have 3 (sometimes 4) of them starting games for us - Moran, Sigurdsson, Szmodics and Dolan.

We're crying out for pace out wide. 

[Exiled_Rover]

23 hours ago, arbitro said:

Sorry I can't agree. This represents a chance of progressing in the FA Cup and gives us all something to get behind and if we get through another chance to make some money. I will be hugely surprised and disappointed of Tomasson doesn't go with his strongest available team.

Yep, it's worth £120k to the winners. You're then hoping for either another win in the 5th round (£225k) or an away tie at a Newcastle et al where they split the gate receipts with you. 

Sadly we're at that point as a club where a good cup funds transfers. 

[arbitro]

1 minute ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Yep, it's worth £120k to the winners. You're then hoping for either another win in the 5th round (£225k) or an away tie at a Newcastle et al where they split the gate receipts with you. 

Sadly we're at that point as a club where a good cup funds transfers. 

We made quite a significant amount of money in the FA Cup matches last season along with the plethora of live league games. Sadly none of it was given to improve the squad but instead it went to reduce the owners financial input (as per Waggott's confirmation to the FF).

[bluebruce]

15 hours ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Yep, it's worth £120k to the winners. You're then hoping for either another win in the 5th round (£225k) or an away tie at a Newcastle et al where they split the gate receipts with you. 

Sadly we're at that point as a club where a good cup funds transfers. 

I wonder how much Mowbray's abject surrenders in the cup year after year cost us.

[RoverCanada]

22 hours ago, arbitro said:

We made quite a significant amount of money in the FA Cup matches last season along with the plethora of live league games. Sadly none of it was given to improve the squad but instead it went to reduce the owners financial input (as per Waggott's confirmation to the FF).

Yeah, I also thought that was an interesting aside from Waggott. Does highlight that even if Venky's have generally provided a... 'generous' amount of funding over the years, some of our sclerotic decision-making seems to link to that funding being incredibly inflexible (even before this year's cashflow SNAFUs).

Seems we get a fixed budget every year, and I guess like any subsidiary within a business empire of sorts, we have to fight tooth and nail for flexibility on top of that, causing painful delays, even with an unprojected cash inflow like a cup run.

This Athletic article about Mowbray's slow-motion departure (undoubtedly fed by friends of his) highlighted how Suhail happily downplayed his experience in football matters (and the article claims Mowbray ultimately got along with and respected the role of Suhail) but then inevitably gets over-involved negotiations. Even 'simple' deals drag on forever; see Moran's loan deal or the O'Riordan signing. We obviously need to wring everything we can out of our pounds, but not to the point of paralyzing the club.

It should be noted that while the cup runs definitely helped our finances last year (going by the VLL accounts, we're probably looking at our best turnover since the PL), it will have also caused other costs to go up (I look forward to many fans' surprise that our wage bill was actually grew last year when our official accounts come out in ~April!)

[philipl]

Glad Saadi and Whitehall are finally on their way back and in the under 21 squad today.

[rigger]

2 minutes ago, philipl said:

Glad Saadi and Whitehall are finally on their way back and in the under 21 squad today.

Saadi is awful, at U21s level he is neither a center-half or a midfielder.

[Rochdale_rover]

Glad about Whitehall.  Hope he can stay fit. Such a shame. Was head and shoulders above everyone one on the pitch a few years ago . Look a real unit in midfield with all the attributes . 

 

May be too late for him now with us . Bit hopefully can get a pro contract somewhere

[rigger]

U21s Won 2-1 v barcodes

[bluebruce]

2 hours ago, Rochdale_rover said:

Glad about Whitehall.  Hope he can stay fit. Such a shame. Was head and shoulders above everyone one on the pitch a few years ago . Look a real unit in midfield with all the attributes . 

 

May be too late for him now with us . Bit hopefully can get a pro contract somewhere

Yeh Whitehall has looked really good whenever I've seen him, and has had rave reviews from more regular watchers. A real shame he's had such a bad time with injuries. Like you say, probably too late now to make it with us even if he stops being injury prone.

[arbitro]

It was bitterly cold at Leyland today and the game didn't really do a lot to take my mind off the cold. We were the better team in the first half but it was a particularly low bar with Newcastle looking poor. We should have had more than the one goal we had as we created some decent chances. Newcastle made a couple of changes at half time and it was a role reversal from them as they were the better side and caused us problems. They deservedly equalised and at that point you would have said there was only going to be one winner and it wasn't us. We made a couple of changes and started to get back into the game and the winner came from a Gilsenan near post corner headed home smartly by Nsangou. It was pleasing to see Isaac Whitehall back on the pitch although clearly it's going to take him some time to get up to speed after such a lengthy period out. Joe Hilton made some really good saves in the second half to keep us in the game. Another highlight was Gilsenan almost scoring from forty yards as he saw the keeper off his line and tried to chip it over him but it just drifted narrowly wide.

[neophox]

Junior Nsangou scoring the winner....seems he keeps up scoring for the team...polish international.

[KentExile]

31 minutes ago, neophox said:

Junior Nsangou scoring the winner....seems he keeps up scoring for the team...polish international.

Polish U20 International.  He has not replaced Lewandowski quite yet.  And "keeps scoring" may also be a slight exaggeration.  3 goals in 13 games for the U21s (granted he has been more prolific in the U18s)

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/junior-nsangou/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/936903/plus/0?saison=&verein=&liga=&wettbewerb=GB21&pos=&trainer_id=

Edited January 28, 2024 by KentExile

[neophox]

Whitehall's contract expires in the summer...

[neophox]

22 minutes ago, KentExile said:

Polish U20 International.  He has not replaced Lewandowski quite yet.  And "keeps scoring" may also be a slight exaggeration.  3 goals in 13 games for the U21s (granted he has been more prolific in the U18s)

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/junior-nsangou/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/936903/plus/0?saison=&verein=&liga=&wettbewerb=GB21&pos=&trainer_id=

Yes but hopefully someone to watch in the future

[Spartakfenni]

38 minutes ago, neophox said:

Whitehall's contract expires in the summer...

From the limited time he got today he still looks the real deal. He needs regular game time to the end of the season and hopefully he can get a one year deal to see if he injury nightmare is over. He would certainly give the first team some different options. Keep going Issac.

[bluebruce]

7 hours ago, neophox said:

Whitehall's contract expires in the summer...

He will be 22 in the summer. At that age you don't generally get a new deal unless you've played a game for the first team. That said, he was already injured when we gave him the one-year deal in the summer, so we knew this was the situation back then and still extended him. Though, the club did say they were 'continuing to support him through his lengthy injury lay-off' (minor paraphrase), so I wonder if it was purely to be nice to a player who has been here since he was 12 and help him have a career, or if we intend to see if he can stay injury-free and impress enough to get another deal.

Of course, if he plays out of his skin, it's almost certain he gets offered a new deal. Fingers crossed as he looks a real talent, but he's had a foot problem that needed surgery on 4 occasions. I don't think he played at all in the last two seasons. I was very excited about his prospects at one time.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Great to see Tom Atcheson come on again last night. Bit nervy but good experience for him!

[RoverCanada]

Don't know if this has already been posted, but came across this video from a few weeks ago by 'Inside The Academy' featuring our Academy, focusing on the u18s. Includes interviews with Stuart Jones, GB, and a bunch of other academy staff.

Going by the weather and GB mentioning 3 straight league losses + a couple big Cup wins with young squads, I think the interview was conducted in early October.

Haven't watched it all (it's an hour long...), but did watch the GB bit. No real gossip/surprising tidbits, just generally setting out the framework they're trying to put in place for the Academy, etc.