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Originally Posted by Pogue Mahone
Very good summary. Worth mentioning that, while Neville is still a long way short of his old self, last night's effort was a significant improvement on his last outing with the reserves. Really encouraging to see him improving like that.
Agree totally about watching the reserves. When you're relying on a 16 year-old as your most potent attacking threat outside the first-team squad it's a bit of a worry. Eagles aside, our lack of resources on the wings and up front is a huge problem. The lack of strikers is the most worrying, God knows we're not overrun with them in the first team!
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True, the lack of strikers is a worry. However, I'm not too concerned because it seems we have real quality instead of quantity. Welbeck and Macheda (in the academy at the moment but will probably in the reserves next year) are two of the most promising forwards who have been in our youth ranks in ages. Both have so many attributes and especially Macheda recently and Welbeck earlier in the season when he was playing alongside him seemed to be improving with every game. I'm really excited to see how both progress, and at the ages of 16/17 they have time to keep progressing. Though it is a worry how Welbeck in particular seems to be in a real slump playing as a lone striker.
The wingers on the other hand, apart from Antonio Bryan...I can't think of one who has genuine pace and puts fullbacks on the back foot. The likes of S.Evans, Galbraith, Eikrem and even Eagles are good on the ball and talented passers of it but can't penetrate or run at defenders which is particularly detrimental to the both the academy and reserves. However, the first team has a few of these types of wingers so it may not be of concern in the long run.