United were able to field their reserve side in the Championship, like Real Madrid, Barcelona and others are able to do in Spain. For those in the know (more than me, anyway), do you think that this would be beneficial to the players development? Furthermore, how do you think that the side would do results wise in the Championship? Who would be in the team?
What if.....?
- Thread starter redfromcanada
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I don't think it'd work myself. As it is, it's not a done thing, and the reserve sides always seem to play other reserve sides in games, as opposed to lower league first teams, except for in pre-season.
I think the physical nature of the championship probably wouldn't be the best place to try and build up our younger players, and our reserves would probably end up getting knocked about quite a bit, and probably struggle in the division, especially the younger ones who could do with bulking up a bit. There are some of our reserves who might benefit from playing championship football, but most of those end up going on loan to the division anyway, and gain experience from doing so at a new side with a different set up to that of United.
It's a nice idea, but for those reasons, and the fact that the championship is a very competitive league, and one with long-established, fervently supported sides, it'd seem strange as well as impractical to begin peppering it with top-division reserve sides at the expense of teams from across the country. Not in favour of it myself.
I think the physical nature of the championship probably wouldn't be the best place to try and build up our younger players, and our reserves would probably end up getting knocked about quite a bit, and probably struggle in the division, especially the younger ones who could do with bulking up a bit. There are some of our reserves who might benefit from playing championship football, but most of those end up going on loan to the division anyway, and gain experience from doing so at a new side with a different set up to that of United.
It's a nice idea, but for those reasons, and the fact that the championship is a very competitive league, and one with long-established, fervently supported sides, it'd seem strange as well as impractical to begin peppering it with top-division reserve sides at the expense of teams from across the country. Not in favour of it myself.
Mourinho recommend it a while back didn't he?
As GH said, the physical nature of it means it's not as well suited to English football as Spanish football.
Plus I think that the Championship would be too high of a standard for alot of the young kids, especially when the first break into reserve football.
Additionally, it undermines the other teams in the league. Sometimes United would put out a stronger reserve team against one club but a weaker one against another club, and this could unfairly affect who eventually gets promoted or relegated.
I might be in favour of entering the reserves into the Johnston's Paint Trophy though.
As GH said, the physical nature of it means it's not as well suited to English football as Spanish football.
Plus I think that the Championship would be too high of a standard for alot of the young kids, especially when the first break into reserve football.
Additionally, it undermines the other teams in the league. Sometimes United would put out a stronger reserve team against one club but a weaker one against another club, and this could unfairly affect who eventually gets promoted or relegated.
I might be in favour of entering the reserves into the Johnston's Paint Trophy though.
I take your point about undermining other teams and this is a good observation.
But I disagree about too high a standard or too physical. What most people forget, is that up to relatively recently, our A and B teams used to play in the Lancashire League. These leagues had the likes of Rochdale, Tranmere, Oldham, Burnley, Liverpool, Everton, City, Blackpool, Morecambe, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Wigan amongst other local teams and our youngsters were often kicked to shit by much older ex pro's or those who never made it in the game.
Then they also played works teams which was like Sunday League football with 30+ year olds all making comments like "I'll show these United upstarts a thing about football" ......."if he thinks he is making an idiot out of me today he will end up in the hospital" and so on.
The Championship has teams that mostly try to play football so I reckon our reserves would do ok at this level.
Personally I think it's unfair on the other teams - lower league teams here have a level of support miles beyond even the top leagues in some European countries. Lower league football means far too much to too many people for this ever to be allowed to happen. Can you imagine the uproar if a United Reserves team 'stole' a football league place from a lower league team? We would never hear the end of it!
Just to say, that's what I meant about the 'fervently supported' sides, but you've put it better than me, samabachan. There'd definitely be quite a few issues about this, as it'd be a new implementation, as opposed to something that's been a long standing tradition as in Spain.
There'd be a few positives to our reserves being in the championship, but the impracticalities of it on quite a few fronts outweigh these positives imo.
It's an interesting idea, but unfortunately would never happen as there would be too much opposition from the Football League clubs for the reasons people have stated.
Whilst this is true, up until a few years ago the way sides set up their reserves was quite different. The reserves were typically of a similar age to the first team, and made up mostly of fringe players who'd be brought in to the first team if they were on top form, or as cover for injuries. Nowadays though, the reserves is mostly made up of quite young lads, with less footballing experience, who'd probably struggle more with the physical constraints of a competitive game against Rochdale or Tranmere more than a bunch of more bulked-up and experienced fringe players would.
I get where you're coming from, Mr. M, just that I think the change in the focus of the reserves makes those kind of clashes more impractical.
If Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool etc. have youth/reserves at CCC-level, why not create a national league for the Premier League teams?
I think some teams did that and still do it.......but if you look at our reserve sides down the years......most of them are our juniors rather than older first team players.
In the 1950's and 1960's we rarely bought players anyway.
In the 1970's we had a hard core of about 6/7 bought players who mostly played in the first team.
It was only really with Atkinson in the mid-1980's where he bought loads of players, fecked up our youth system and Fergie had to clear loads of them out to enable the kids to play in the reserves.
As an example here a few line-ups from our reserves from each era to illustrate my point.
1956: Clayton, Jones, Kennedy, Goodwin, Cope , McGuinness, Webster, Doherty, Blanchflower, Charlton, Scanlon
1965: Gaskell, Brennan, Noble, McBride, Sadler, Fitzpatrick, McEwen, Sartori, Baartz, Kinsey, Kidd
1976: Mountford, Bailey, Bradley, Waldron, Rogers, Storey, McGrath, Clark, Botham, Kelly, Morris
1985: Turner, Gidman, Sivebaek, Moses, Garton, Higgins, Dempsey, Strachan, Hanrahan, Wood, Olsen
1995: Pilkington, P. Neville, O;Kane, Beckham, McGibbon, Casper, Butt, Cooke, Irving, Rawlinson, Johnson
So as you can see...in 1956 we only had one bought player (Webster)...in 1965 there were none.....1976 only Waldron and McGrath.....1985 there were 8 players......no wonder no kids came through and in 1995 only Pat McGibbon didn't come through the system.
So fundamentally we have always played our juniors in the reserves regardless of the opposition who will often play loads of experienced players.
Look at the LSC Final the other night. Every Bolton player had played in the first team with over 1000 league appearances between them, while we played most of our kids.
So my belief is that it won't work for structural, political and financial reasons.....not because our kids couldn't cope.
Would benefit our kids somewhat but I think they'd be lucky to escape relegation. A lot of our Reserves and Under-18s are arguably not ready for first-team football at Championship level. After all, only the promising end up on loan in the Championship or above.
The idea was mooted a year or two ago that the reserve teams of the bigger clubs should be able to play in the lower two leagues but I cant remember whether it was seriously considered by the FA.A Leeds mate of mine was horrified as it meant they could be reduced to playing our B team
I've clearly been proved wrong on this one MR. MUJAC. Fair play mate, I can't really argue with those facts about us.
I still think that for reserve teams in general though there's been a bit of a trend towards bringing through youth instead of playing fringe players, but it's evidently not been quite the same transition from one to the other at United. Good stats there.
I still think that for reserve teams in general though there's been a bit of a trend towards bringing through youth instead of playing fringe players, but it's evidently not been quite the same transition from one to the other at United. Good stats there.