What's Balo Up To Now?!!

[Ted Hughes]

Crashing his car? Fighting with doormen?

Answer: Incognito in Altrincham watching City reserves at Scum. Nice one Mario. Quality.

[Dameerto]

maybe he's friends with some of the EDS guys.

[The Man In Blue]

1-1 at HT if anyone's interested. Abdi Ibrahim for City.

[coMs]

hope he hasnt brought along his darts :-)

[bigblue]

Im stuck watching this on a stream of sucmTV. The commentators are making my ears bleed

[Chinners]

The fact that you've even got scumtv is a concern for me ...

[Wonderwall]

Stream chinners not the actual channel

[bigblue]

Yeah its through veetle (stream) and the commentators are complaining that a bumble bee is trying to attack them in the studio. Anderson has torn our midfield apart and Bebe looks woeful. Not much to say about the City players besides Mancini has had a few good touches but Guidetti keeps losing the ball trying to turn the defender

[Arjan Van Schotte]

it's free to air and we lost 3-1. :(((((

[Ted Hughes]

So it's 1-1, City totally dominating the game, few near misses & Vesseli (centre back) does his hamstring, so of course we bring on a replacement centre back? No.

We bring on Harry Bunn, a striker & put him on the right wing. Then we take our slow central midfielder & put him at centre back next to Chantler at left back who also seems to be a midfielder filling in at left back moving Poole, a striker, to midfield.

Utd had just brought on Anderson.

Can you guess what fucking happens next?

Helan looked very good & Wabera was outstanding. Be surprised if there's a Premier Lg player amongst the other 20.

[Douglas Higginbottom]

So it's 1-1, City totally dominating the game, few near misses & Vesseli (centre back) does his hamstring, so of course we bring on a replacement centre back? No.

We bring on Harry Bunn, a striker & put him on the right wing. Then we take our slow central midfielder & put him at centre back next to Chantler at left back who also seems to be a midfielder filling in at left back moving Poole, a striker, to midfield.

Utd had just brought on Anderson.

Can you guess what fucking happens next?

Helan looked very good & Wabera was outstanding. Be surprised if there's a Premier Lg player amongst the other 20.

Hmm all sounds a bit manic. Chantler is a left back who occasionally plays left midfield. Wasnt Meppen Walters one of ther subs? He is a center back for the under 18's and has got England recognition so I would have thought he should have been on for Veseli unless they were worried he couldn't cope.

[Goataldo]

Does this mean Mario is now a United fan?

[Ted Hughes]

So it's 1-1, City totally dominating the game, few near misses & Vesseli (centre back) does his hamstring, so of course we bring on a replacement centre back? No.

We bring on Harry Bunn, a striker & put him on the right wing. Then we take our slow central midfielder & put him at centre back next to Chantler at left back who also seems to be a midfielder filling in at left back moving Poole, a striker, to midfield.

Utd had just brought on Anderson.

Can you guess what fucking happens next?

Helan looked very good & Wabera was outstanding. Be surprised if there's a Premier Lg player amongst the other 20.

Hmm all sounds a bit manic. Chantler is a left back who occasionally plays left midfield. Wasnt Meppen Walters one of ther subs? He is a center back for the under 18's and has got England recognition so I would have thought he should have been on for Veseli unless they were worried he couldn't cope.

I think Meppen Walters was one of the subs.

Chantler fought well considering he's about as well equipped to play left back as I am, but imo he's got no chance of making a decent career there. Possible combative midfielder in the making but not at PL level.

Looking at rags' reserves, they always seem to be made up of what they consider (usually wrongly) to be potential future 1st team players & current fringe 1st team players. They are at least, on the whole, physically up to the job. Our so called 'Elite Development Squad' always seems to be at least half full of players who are clearly on their way out of the club & nowhere near PL standard either talent wise or physically.

It should be for the 'elite' imo but it's not. It's an absolute joke. It's more like a shop window hoping to get employment for failed academy players. No doubt Kelvin Etuhu would have been playing if he wasn't in prison.

I was hoping for much better than this when we overhauled the system. It's got even worse if anything.

[kinkylola]

To be honest, I'm not a fan of the reserve team setup as it currently seems to be run. I dont see that it serves any purpose besides being a shop window for failed academy players, like ted says. But basically, if we have a major young talent coming through, then I wouldn't want him playing in that league anyway, it's full of failures and it seems like many don't take it seriously as competition ... which is not the right environment to be blooding youngsters. Use it as a shop window, I say, because if a youth is talented enough he should be able to play in a cup game or 2 by the time he is 18 and then go out on loan to a lower division (or lower prem if he's good enough) and actually play in some meaningful games and learn something. The reserve structure as it is now is not a place for emerging talent.

[dazby]

I heard today that Tottinghan did away with their reserves squad. Any players at that level are sent out on loan.

Interesting.

[kinkylola]

i'd like to see our "EDS" actually become useful and be a plce for emerging talent to show what they can do ... So I think they should not be a part of the reserve team. now that you mention that dazby, I recall hearing that before and that is one option I think. Another option might be to find other like minded teams in foreign countries and take the EDS around, or bring foreign youth/reserve teams here and expose the players to different styles and challenges. Also helps our scouting network. We could organize EDS cups, which are a bit more intense and would probably be a good bonding experience for young future first team players. I dunno, just throwing ideas around. the way it is now sucks though.

[ant london]

Was some kind of European youth team league not mooted at some point (did we not play Ajax or something like that). Now that sounds like a sensible plan.

This type of competition sounds pointless in many ways

[Dameerto]

There was something mentioned about some kind of a youth competition when we partnered with Espanyol.

"Though talks of a friendly have been tentative, there is an eagerness to have a get together of youth sides in Sant Adrià – the sports city in which several of Espanyol’s ‘Juvenil’ squads play."

Still speculative, and that quote is from a Spanish site. I think part of the idea behind the change to 'EDS' from reserves was with one eye on bringing in youngsters from foreign partners at some point.

[Ted Hughes]

Imo, the EDS should be full of our best young players all playing together, so that, obviously, they learn to play together & the accent should be on playing pass & move football. If that means a lad of 16 playing amongst 20 year olds & keeping a lot of older lads out of the team, then so be it. If it means most of the team are 16 years old & the older ones not good enough then so be it. If a 16 year old is better than the rest, he may be ready for the 1st team squad. If we were Barca, Lionel Messi would have had to wait his turn because Lee Croft was playing. Tbf, Lee Croft himself was ruined by not being fast tracked imo & lost his focus because of it.

If players start to regularly drop below that standard, or are late developers, then they should go back to their original level & strive to get back in.

It should be an honour for which all the young players strive & a direct line to the 1st team squad.

If we want a shop window for duffers, then we should start off a 2nd reserve team v the lower league sides, like we did a few years ago.

We are not a community programme or charity for finding employment for kids, we are a football club, trying to join the elite.

[ashton287]

Imo, the EDS should be full of our best young players all playing together, so that, obviously, they learn to play together & the accent should be on playing pass & move football. If that means a lad of 16 playing amongst 20 year olds & keeping a lot of older lads out of the team, then so be it. If it means most of the team are 16 years old & the older ones not good enough then so be it. If a 16 year old is better than the rest, he may be ready for the 1st team squad. If we were Barca, Lionel Messi would have had to wait his turn because Lee Croft was playing. Tbf, Lee Croft himself was ruined by not being fast tracked imo & lost his focus because of it.

If players start to regularly drop below that standard, or are late developers, then they should go back to their original level & strive to get back in.

It should be an honour for which all the young players strive & a direct line to the 1st team squad.

If we want a shop window for duffers, then we should start off a 2nd reserve team v the lower league sides, like we did a few years ago.

We are not a community programme or charity for finding employment for kids, we are a football club, trying to join the elite.

No one else has been able to emulate barca's success with the youth so what makes you think we will be able to?.