Reserves this season

[Pogue Mahone]

Wellbeck aside, when was the last time we had so few players to get excited about in our reserves?

Some decent prospects in the Academy but I'm really struggling to have any interest in the reserves these days

 

[Coca Cola]

Personally I still enjoy watching the reserves, there´s a lot of talent there even though most of them won´t make it at United. James Chester, Craig Cathcart, Tom Cleverley, Sam Hewson, Sean Evans, Chris Eagles, Antonio Bryan, all talented players. The fact that none of them has a chance of making it makes it less exciting, but there´s still some good football.

I miss Febian Brandy and Kieran Lee though, both were playing excellently for the reserves before going out on loan.


There´s a lot of good attacking talent in the academy and I agree, I enjoy watching them more, shame they are lacking in defence though and concede a lot of goals, something that cost them in the FYC. Cathcart was such a crucial player in last season´s youth cup run.

 

[sincher]

A lot of the reserves are out on loan.

I think we have a slightly different policy now - with the local lads especially a lot of it is about pushing players through to a good career, and perhaps getting enough for them to continue investing in the next crop. The odds of them being good enough for United are becoming increasingly narrow as more and more these days we demand 11 world class players. On that basis, players like Bardsley, Shawcross, Ebanks-Blake, David Jones, etc. as well as the likes of Rossi have been successes.

If you look at it like that, the current set of ressies is maybe a bit bloated, but I think there are plenty of players who look like have good careers, perhaps not at United but probably in the top two tiers of football in this country - Eagles, Martin, Simpson, Campbell, Lee, Jonny Evans, Cathcart, Gibson, Brandy, Heaton, Sean Evans, Gray, and further back Hewson, Drinkwater, Bryan, Galbraith, Zieler, Chester, Eckersley, Cleverley, Corry Evans, McCormack, James, Norwood, Ajose, Stewart. All promising enough to hold on to, I think, even if you might struggle to peg any of them as future stars.

Then of course there are the imported youngsters and we're bringing more and more of them in on the basis that there is a stronger likelihood of them making it at the top level - Fabio, Rafael, Macheda, King, Cofie, Possebom, Brady, Eikrem, Brandao... Many of these will fall into the same bracket, but a couple might become class.

I think there are plenty of youngsters to get excited about. They don't seem to blend into teams as well sometimes these days, but a lot of that is down to the loan system pushing them up a bracket before they're ready - in many cases physically, and in some cases, in terms of their development as players.

Having said that, there are a few who look like they are on the way out, e.g. Barnes, Ritchie Jones, and a few who aren't really showing enough.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I suppose it depends on why you watch em. They do play some decent football and there's no doubt some of em have talent.

I guess that my main buzz is about watching teh next generation of first-teamers coming through. And after getting all in a dither about David Jones and Rossi, only to see them move on, I'm not enjoying watching this season's batch of kids cause I don't think any of them have any real chance of a career at United.

Agree about Kieran Lee and Brandy being missed. i would rate those two, plus Wellbeck, as the best of the bunch. Hewson not far behind.

Apologies for the depressing thread. It's just that I just watched the highlights of the MSC game against Bolton and it just reminded me how much I enjoyed watching Rossi and how not one of this season's side even comes close

 

[PS18]

i can see where you're coming from. i think there as many (if not more) talented, watchable players in the reserve/academy setup, but the quality of the reserve league is just awful these days and it's a bit of a vicious circle:

the reserve league got cut to ten teams which means less games > the top prospects get loaned out as they're not getting enough football > the quality of the reserve league gets worse > even more kids get loaned out > quality gets even worse...

...and so on. going back 2/3 years i used to love heading down to Alty or Hyde on a thursday to watch the reserves. they were an exciting team that played some lovely football, and there were plenty of players who you thought (maybe naively in hindsight) might go on to make the first team squad, the likes of Jones, Rossi, Martin, Campbell, Eagles, Gibson, Blake, Evans, Simpson etc. hell, the way the first team were performing around that time, it was almost more enjoyable watching the second string.

but then the league structure was changed and there's such a marked difference. i still got to almost all the home games at Hyde last season but it was increasingly a chore - getting to Hyde was a pain in the arse but i didn't mind it when the football was good. last season it was more often than not pretty dire fayre - players you knew weren't going to make it (and who probably knew it themselves) going through the motions and a really poor standard of football. the long journey to Hyde and the typically sub-zero temperatures weren't a bother when the game was something to look forward to but by the end of the season i found i was going only through some sense of duty rather than in the hope of an entertaining evening of football and a glimpse of United's future.

this season, from the brief bits i've seen there's been slightly more to enjoy from the performances (mainly due to Brandy and Hewson stepping up and Kieran Lee still featuring, all 'favourites' of mine, plus the odd Welbeck cameo of course) but the quality still seems woeful and it's debatable i'd be going to every game if they were still at Hyde. as it is with them being at bloody Northwich, i've only bothered on a handful of occasions and can't see that changing.

i still think it was an absolutely disgraceful decision by the Premier League to cut the ***RL to two ten-team leagues. when you consider the ongoing navel-gazing over the lack of young talent coming through in this country, it was a scandalous decision, and i'm still yet to hear of a logical reason for it. long gone are the days when the reserve team was the perfect stepping stone from youth team football up to the first team squad (you could argue they were gone before the league was reduced in size but it's even more pertinent now).

i guess personally as well, there's an element of my 'confidence' having taken a knock with two players i was so certain had futures with us (Rossi and Jones) moving on, and that's certainly manifested itself in a lack of enthusiasm towards the reserve side. much prefer watching the academy kids these days, such a shame they choked somewhat against Carlisle as they're a really talented bunch in the most part (agree about the definite weakness at the back, Chester and Cathcart 'graduating' left a big hole, especially with no defenders among this year's second years).

 

[68-99-08]

Its down to the fact that the Premiership's overall quality has improved and it takes now around the 90 point mark to win the league. This means that the teams in the top 4 have improved so much that kids coming through basically need to be something special to make it. If the likes of David Jones, Rossi, Gibson etc were coming through in the 90s they wouldve had a better chance of making it because we were winning the league with about 77-80 points and you could afford to drop points more easily than nowadays. Even the top young players coming through like Pique and Simpson are failing to get games here and there.

I think there is defintiely hope for some of our homegrown players like Kieran Lee, Sam Hewson and Danny Drinkwater but the chances of cutting it at Utd are getting smaller and smaller as time goes on.