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All things Bristol City U23's


Lrrr

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9 minutes ago, Mendip City said:

What ever was wrong with reserve teams? 
a blended team of kids and experienced players is surely a sensible step towards first team football. 
soneone like Pearson (S) or Towler had probably never played a proper men’s game in their life and get chucked straight into the Championship. Crazy. 
the alternative seems to be loaning them out - but look at James Morton, I don’t think he’s kicked a ball at Gillingham yet. 

I've said my opinion on academy football, the league structure needs a complete overhaul so that it resembles the football league, where all u23's sides play in a league structure and can be promoted or relegated. Categories remain so that Cat 1 sides if you want to spend more on academy sides can maintain their edge by providing more for their players but it keeps the competitive edge, also start the league structure Cat 1 then 2 then 3 and then 4 etc. Having the league structure would ensure competitiveness of needing to grind out results for league position. For example based the idea off the current u23's standings if you resembled the senior league structure you'd roughly have a league structure of:

I can't find tables for Cat 3 and 4 at u23's level but you get the idea, yes it looks fairly similar to current senior standings but once you combine the categories in a couple of years you'd see the better performing cat 3 and 4 teams rise quickly and the poor cat 1 and 2 teams drop quickly and emphasise the need for results in academy football. That would also be the thing about this system over the current categories, if say our academy got promoted to Div 1 then our u23's would play against the top sides on merit. I'd probably separate 18's and 23's and keep 18's under the current system as promotion/relegation for them is too flimsy on having a good/bad crop of youngsters for 2 years in a row, 2 relegations in a row but then an excellent crop of youngsters wouldn't be good to have them drop 2 divisions. U23's you've got 5 age groups worth of players you've kept on plus any 18's playing up so would be more stable. If anything could see more kids kept in academy football for longer to play u23's football if clubs still want to loan out their best. In turn would raise the standard of u18's football by players not just being shunted up to fill gaps.

Div 1 

  1. Manchester City
  2. Blackburn Rovers
  3. Tottenham
  4. Man Utd
  5. Derby County
  6. Everton
  7. Chelsea
  8. Liverpool
  9. Brighton
  10. Arsenal
  11. Leicester
  12. Southampton
  13. West Ham
  14. Leeds
  15. Stoke
  16. Wolves
  17. Crystal Palace
  18. Reading
  19. Villa
  20. Burnley

Div 2

  1. Norwich
  2. Fulham
  3. Middlesbrough
  4. West Brom
  5. Sunderland
  6. Newcastle
  7. Bristol City
  8. Nottingham Forest
  9. Sheffield Utd
  10. Wigan
  11. Birmingham
  12. Barnsley
  13. Hull
  14. Charlton
  15. Ipswich
  16. Cardiff
  17. Millwall
  18. Watford
  19. Swansea 
  20. Coventry

Div 3

  1. Colchester
  2. Crewe
  3. QPR

 

 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

It could be:

which Bristol city player are a majority of fans most blinkered to their ability?  

Answer could be Watkins but I would say COD or Semenyo 

I'm not blinkered, fella. I simply see someone who has limited technical ability but puts himself about.

Given he will be 31 later this year and the fact he's made 10 starts for us in three years, equal to £100k per start, there's no way in hell he should be getting a new deal IMO. He's exactly the type of deadwood we need off the books. 

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1 minute ago, italian dave said:

Pedant alert.....but if 23 year olds aren’t counted as over-age, then shouldn’t it really be called the U24 league?

Not really, any kids sport its always called under 'x' as the age you turn in that year, think it basically refers to (for this) under 23 .... at the start of the season

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1 minute ago, italian dave said:

Pedant alert.....but if 23 year olds aren’t counted as over-age, then shouldn’t it really be called the U24 league?

Think it is age at the start of the season but agree, today’s side probably wasn’t in the spirit of the competition.

However I’m pretty sure the last side we put out v Colchester had Wollacott in goal & an outfield 10 that contained 1 player over 20, so swings and roundabouts..

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1 minute ago, GrahamC said:

Think it is age at the start of the season but agree, today’s side probably wasn’t in the spirit of the competition.

However I’m pretty sure the last side we put out v Colchester had Wollacott in goal & an outfield 10 that contained 1 player over 20, so swings and roundabouts..

Cardiff vs Swansea earlier this season featured 4 or 5 Cardiff first team players and they got battered 5-1 by Swansea so ?‍♂️ I've also seen u23's games where you've got 20 first team players on the pitch at one point with a higher standard than most championship games and players worth more then £10m playing. If the player is under the age requirement its all good for them not counting as an overage player. In theory Jude Bellingham could have played an u16's game for Birmingham last season, say he'd picked up an injury and they wanted to ease him back.

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1 hour ago, tin said:

He's exactly the type of deadwood we need off the books. 

Deadwood may be a tad harsh,but is he the type to help us push forwards??....

You can take all of the Rowe's,, Hunt's & Watkins's - all of a similar 'ilk..honest enough.

Bit not progressive in any way.

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Great news that Liam Walsh apparently completed the full 90 minutes - perhaps he is nearer to full first team match fitness than was thought.

Hopefully his return to fitness allows him to feature prominently in the run in and prove his worth to NP.

Next season, fingers crossed he stays, we have the exciting prospect of a far more combative and creative midfield built around Walsh and Joe Williams.

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2 hours ago, Lrrr said:

Its a league game, we've just stuck as many in as we're allowed, Walsh/Moore both 23 for example

I think the whole training bubble thing plays a part here too. Bringing Sainsbury, Harper, Baldwin and Britton into the first team bubble and piling those eligible from the first team in would mean those gaining match fitness can be incorporated in the match day squad sooner? I could be completely wrong though. 

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2 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Pearson said today's system of 352 he might use on the weekend. Interesting.

That would likely mean Baker left of the 3 and O'Dowda left wing back I reckon.

I would probably hope it's Wells and Watkins up top.

Is that from Gregor’s report?  If so, he didn’t say when he might use!!! ?

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2 hours ago, Son of Fred said:

Deadwood may be a tad harsh,but is he the type to help us push forwards??....

You can take all of the Rowe's,, Hunt's & Watkins's - all of a similar 'ilk..honest enough.

Bit not progressive in any way.

Totally agree, id prefer academy kids taking up their spots in the squad

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Some nice moves...but what a nightmare couple mistakes on 1. 30.

Short pass from Walsh...not controlled by Watkins? Leads to quick interplay by QPR...then our defender try's to move up to catch the forward offside, without even knowing or looking to see where the other defenders were. Leads to what could easily be a goal.

It's those type of individual errors that have haunted us in past two seasons...lots of hard work undone by individual errors. 

Even at 23 level...they'll capatalise on it...far worse at Championship level.

 

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3 minutes ago, Alessandro said:

Walsh playing quite deep in a lot of those highlights. Some nice moments too. 

 

Really hope we can get to see what a Williams, Walsh, Palmer midfield 3 would look like with an in behind runner such as Wells up top next season.

So much potential there for some lovely free flowing football.

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So Walsh completes 90 minutes. 

Now providing he has come through without any issues at all, and trains well the rest of the week, do you put him on the bench on Saturday, or leave him out until he completes another 90 in the u23's?

10-15 minutes in the league, to begin with? 

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17 hours ago, JonDolman said:

Pearson said today's system of 352 he might use on the weekend. Interesting.

That would likely mean Baker left of the 3 and O'Dowda left wing back I reckon.

I would probably hope it's Wells and Watkins up top.

I hope he doesn't do that as it would mean making the same mistake of not giving them enough time to get match fit.

Baker is not a lcb in a 3. We saw that previously. I'd rather have Kalas left and him in the middle.

He's a walking yellow card when dragged wide.

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8 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

Interesting Walsh deepest of the 3 it looks like.

As Pearson said about maybe looking to use that 352, I wonder if this means he sees Walsh's best role as the holder.

 

As you know he played as one of the two deeper CMs in Cov’s 5221.  He might’ve been attacking as an instinct but he did it from deeper positions.

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