EFL Trophy - Rochdale - Manchester United u23

[lysglimt]

A typical United youth player in the last couple of seasons. Looks neat and tidy, can pass and move, but not much is happening. Don't know what's his best position is. Svidersky is one I don't rate and thought he was poor both as a midfielder and a left-back. IMO he has no stand out qualities except working hard. Other than that, not hard to be impressed by Neil Wood and the players! This is an extremely young and inexperienced team! Wood is working wonders.

Of course it's hard to compare Rochdale and Salford with teams that the other P.L U23's are playing - but it's worth noticing that several of the U23s have been destroyed so far.

Newcastle 2 defeats 0-4 gd
Liverpool 2 defeats 3-9 gd
Brighton 2 defeats 2-5 gd
Leeds and Villa both lost by 7 in their only game so far.

Only United, City and West Ham of the U23s are undefeated after 2 games.

So yes - impressive so far.

And we are in reality already qualified for the next round. The only way we wont qualify is if Salford beat Rochdale on penalties and we lose by 9 goals against Morecambe

 

[Mr. MUJAC]

A typical United youth player in the last couple of seasons. Looks neat and tidy, can pass and move, but not much is happening. Don't know what's his best position is. Svidersky is one I don't rate and thought he was poor both as a midfielder and a left-back. IMO he has no stand out qualities except working hard. Other than that, not hard to be impressed by Neil Wood and the players! This is an extremely young and inexperienced team! Wood is working wonders.

I've been doing loads of analysis during lockdown...catching up with games I've missed...looking at certain players and noticed a few trends when it comes to Academy players. I reckon I've watched 25-30 games that I recorded over last couple of seasons in the last few weeks.

1. Every player is technically good on the ball particularly short passing game.
2. Every player when receiving the ball moves their body shape to protect possession OR...takes a push on the receipt of the ball to take it away from the press (5-10 yards)
3. Nearly every game is played with the ball on the ground.
4. The game slows down significantly when anyone reaches the box or final third.
5. Virtually no-one takes a man on and tries to beat them. It seems that retaining possession is key.
6. Virtually no attacking player shoots first time or shoots from distance...it's a real rarity.
7. I can't remember one headed goal scored but we concede quite a few mainly from set pieces. This continues right up to Academy players in the first team.
8. Goalkeepers rarely command the ball outside their six yard box...it's almost as if they are told don't come off your line.
9. Goalkeepers rarely kick it long and even venture outside the box when in possession to play as a sweeper.

So most of this is not new or particularly insightful but really interesting to watch when you speed recordings up.

Given that nearly every other Academy is playing a similar way...it does come across as you say..."not much is happening." I don't know what that is like from a playing perspective...I mean they all get lot's of touches on the ball. But from a spectators view...it can come across as quite monotonous.

So when you see players like Svidersky and many others, they fall into that 'vanilla' bucket. Very few stand out. But then again I suppose it's a team game.

Finally, I was watching all the different players and the ones that were better than I first thought were Galbraith, Hardley, Fish and Iqbal. The new players I couldn't really judge after just 1/2 games.

 

[Yagami]

Finally, I was watching all the different players and the ones that were better than I first thought were Galbraith, Hardley, Fish and Iqbal. The new players I couldn't really judge after just 1/2 games.

Haven't got an opinion on Iqbal or Hardley yet myself, but I am a big fan of both Galbraith and Fish. Really composed players.

 

[Mickson]

I've been doing loads of analysis during lockdown...catching up with games I've missed...looking at certain players and noticed a few trends when it comes to Academy players. I reckon I've watched 25-30 games that I recorded over last couple of seasons in the last few weeks.

1. Every player is technically good on the ball particularly short passing game.
2. Every player when receiving the ball moves their body shape to protect possession OR...takes a push on the receipt of the ball to take it away from the press (5-10 yards)
3. Nearly every game is played with the ball on the ground.
4. The game slows down significantly when anyone reaches the box or final third.
5. Virtually no-one takes a man on and tries to beat them. It seems that retaining possession is key.
6. Virtually no attacking player shoots first time or shoots from distance...it's a real rarity.
7. I can't remember one headed goal scored but we concede quite a few mainly from set pieces. This continues right up to Academy players in the first team.
8. Goalkeepers rarely command the ball outside their six yard box...it's almost as if they are told don't come off your line.
9. Goalkeepers rarely kick it long and even venture outside the box when in possession to play as a sweeper.

So most of this is not new or particularly insightful but really interesting to watch when you speed recordings up.

Given that nearly every other Academy is playing a similar way...it does come across as you say..."not much is happening." I don't know what that is like from a playing perspective...I mean they all get lot's of touches on the ball. But from a spectators view...it can come across as quite monotonous.

So when you see players like Svidersky and many others, they fall into that 'vanilla' bucket. Very few stand out. But then again I suppose it's a team game.

Finally, I was watching all the different players and the ones that were better than I first thought were Galbraith, Hardley, Fish and Iqbal. The new players I couldn't really judge after just 1/2 games.

Good post and good observation, that's my feeling too. We see expectations though, like Elanga. However, there are players that are more creative. Take Hannibal for example and compare him to Wellens. So I guess that you are right, but maybe Wellens doesn't have that quality to go 1 on 1 with the defender. He's a good footballer and I have no doubt he will have a decent career, but at United it's not enough to just keep the ball and keep the momentum. Wellens is like Lingard in the first team, but Lingard was obviously very creative in the youth teams but in the first team he just keeps things ticking if you know what I mean.

 

[Mr. MUJAC]

Good post and good observation, that's my feeling too. We see expectations though, like Elanga. However, there are players that are more creative. Take Hannibal for example and compare him to Wellens. So I guess that you are right, but maybe Wellens doesn't have that quality to go 1 on 1 with the defender. He's a good footballer and I have no doubt he will have a decent career, but at United it's not enough to just keep the ball and keep the momentum. Wellens is like Lingard in the first team, but Lingard was obviously very creative in the youth teams but in the first team he just keeps things ticking if you know what I mean.

If you look at Lingard when in form, he regularly beats his opponent. His goal at Watford a couple of seasons ago is a really good indication of what he used to do at youth and reserve level. Unfortunately 2019/20 was a nightmare year for him in every sense so we rarely see it these days.

As you say, just keeping possession isn't enough at first team level.

 

[mazhar13]

Wellens was the one who impressed me the least - he got the ball so many times in good positions on the right, and almost every time he either passed it backwards or moved infield with it. No attempts to cross or challenge the fullback.

Keep in mind that Charlie Wellens is a central midfielder who's playing out on the right wing. He's basically out of position and doesn't have the skill set to play in a more direct attacking role.

Having said that, a midfielder should be able to create space for themselves under pressure, but that's different from getting on the ball and taking a defender on by dribbling towards them. I haven't seen too much of Wellens to say whether he has the ability to create space for himself. Also, if a player is capable of creating space on the ball at the lower underage levels, that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll do it against older, more physically developed players. There would be further development to the players to ensure that they can handle the greater physicality.

Let's see if players like Wellens, McCann, Stanley, and Helm do have that ability. We've seen this from players like Galbraith (surprised me), Levitt, and Garner before them.

 

[Prodigal7]

For Fish to have played the amount of U23s football he did last season he’s clearly someone the coaching staff rate highly and want to accelerate through the system.

 

[AltiUn]

Fish and Bernard were both excellent. As I have said before, Bernard never impressed me much in the beginning when he joined from Chelsea, he almost always had one big mistake in every game. But now - I actually believe he could have a really good career. That incident when he first lost the ball and then simply bundled the attacker off the ball half a second later was impressive. I still rate Mengi above both him and Fish, but they really aren't that far behind.

Ha! Been thinking the same recently, I've mentioned a few times I don't really rate Bernard but he's actually done really well to turn it around this season, credit to the lad. He and Fish are looking a nice little partnership. From what I've seen so far Fish looks like a Rolls Royce of a player, I think he might end up in the same bracket as Mengi if he keeps it up.

 

[NFM]

I've been doing loads of analysis during lockdown...catching up with games I've missed...looking at certain players and noticed a few trends when it comes to Academy players. I reckon I've watched 25-30 games that I recorded over last couple of seasons in the last few weeks.

1. Every player is technically good on the ball particularly short passing game.
2. Every player when receiving the ball moves their body shape to protect possession OR...takes a push on the receipt of the ball to take it away from the press (5-10 yards)
3. Nearly every game is played with the ball on the ground.
4. The game slows down significantly when anyone reaches the box or final third.
5. Virtually no-one takes a man on and tries to beat them. It seems that retaining possession is key.
6. Virtually no attacking player shoots first time or shoots from distance...it's a real rarity.
7. I can't remember one headed goal scored but we concede quite a few mainly from set pieces. This continues right up to Academy players in the first team.
8. Goalkeepers rarely command the ball outside their six yard box...it's almost as if they are told don't come off your line.
9. Goalkeepers rarely kick it long and even venture outside the box when in possession to play as a sweeper.

So most of this is not new or particularly insightful but really interesting to watch when you speed recordings up.

Given that nearly every other Academy is playing a similar way...it does come across as you say..."not much is happening." I don't know what that is like from a playing perspective...I mean they all get lot's of touches on the ball. But from a spectators view...it can come across as quite monotonous.

So when you see players like Svidersky and many others, they fall into that 'vanilla' bucket. Very few stand out. But then again I suppose it's a team game.

Finally, I was watching all the different players and the ones that were better than I first thought were Galbraith, Hardley, Fish and Iqbal. The new players I couldn't really judge after just 1/2 games.