Harry Reed has rightly been lauded for his impressive and mature debut but the senior pros were unbelievable today. Jose and Maya were rock solid and so composed, Steven Davis was inspirational and Shane had his best game by far in a Saints shirt today.
Might be an idea to keep Morgan on the bench. Wasn't he arguably rushed back from injury for the Sheffield game? Both Scneiderlin and Davis have played games earlier than we would have ideally liked them to recently It does make wonder why he didn't play in the League cup
It was a proud feeling restored today. I mentioned to my young lad with pride that 4 academy lads had now taken part in the match. Its a feeling that has maybe been missing this season that we have had for the last few years. The feeling that not only are we doing well but we are doing it from our own hard work at grass roots level. Would love to see a few of them break through over the next couple of seasons and have that 50% (or close to it) from our academy. Would Ings count too if we bought him. lol
He deserves to keep his place in my opinion. I don't think I've ever seen a player with that many tackles on Whoscored. Any player (especially a young player) putting in a performance like that deserves a run in the side. A performance like that is no fluke.
The club can be rightly proud of Reed today. Amazing debut. Wasnt expecting him to have much of on impact but he was everywhere and brilliant. Well done young player!
The snippets he had last season showed he could do that. It may only have been 10 minutes against City, but he was terrier-like then.
Hold on. Didn't Koeman say he had not picked Reed, after Cork was injured, because he considered him to be an attacking midfielder and not a defensive midfielder?
There must have been a reason he was being linked with Man United last January with no games under his belt...
SO who are our exciting attackig players coming out of the academy? I admit to knowing little more than the names of the youth players and a few highlights of goals scored. Do we have any young goalscorers waiting in the wings, whatabout Dominic Gape who had a brief cameo yesterday?
Dom is not an attacking player and doesn't score goals- the top goal scorer for the U18s last year was Hesketh
Only downside from me was a little occasional petulance, but hopefully that'll be resolved with age. Still sterling performance from the lad. It's going to be hard to pick a midfield unless we start rotating them more often.
So I wonder how many academy lads will be in the squad by next season and actually be pushing for the side rather than filling spaces on the bench. I suppose it depends partly on future of Toby, Morgan, cork, yoshida, wanyama and clyne (although I think most are accepting Morgan to leave at a minimum). Those listed are perennially linked away or have expiring contracts. I figure signings will be needed for Morgan, wanyama, clyne and Toby if they leave as even if McCarthy, Stephens and reed are considered ready to step up the squad will be too thin. I'd like to think that the three mentioned plus jwp and targett will al be in and around Hesketh I am just not sure about. He seems like a traditional number 10 which our midfield 3 does not really allow for. It is uncertain what Gallagher will come back like and no one has seen anything of seagar at premier league level. Odd that it seems like there will be more defensive kids when it is usually more common to throw in teenage wingers to give it a go and it is considered lower risk. We haven't done this even as ours have lost form. I wonder if any of the young ones will burst ahead of Isgrove and McQueen by the start of next season (as it would appear koeman doesn't really rate them)
