I was due to be at work all day today but the guy who I was going to meet delayed it to the afternoon so I went to the U18's first PS friendly (won 3-0). Developments - 1) The youth team have been relegated to League 2 along with Palarse, Portsmouth, Southampton (we think). That may sound daft considering that Soton, ourselves and Palarse filled three of the top four positions last season but that's the Premiership for you! 2) The U21 team has entered a U21 league and will play midweek rather than having reserve games. 3) We have three new Irish lads, two have been signed and one on trial we think. A keeper, a ginger haired midfielder and a left back. 4) We have got a forward in from the Dartford area who scored the final goal....he look good! 5) Couldn't see any changes to the training ground over the summer (more later) Right, the reason we were relegated from top yoof League is that the additional money spent on coaches (for the yoof) over the summer, only got us to a Tier 2 Academy and the top league (mostly prem clubs) requires further improvements to our facilities. I gather the club are planning to spend this over the next year so we get Tier 1 status by next summer. People will know that Palarse have always picked up good SE London youngsters (Zaha & Clyne for instance) so if we gan get Tier 1 before them we should be able to gain/keep the better youth from SE London/Kent. The improvements we made this summer were to staffing levels, the improvements to come are aimed at upgrading the facilities at Sparrows but these could aid the first team as well as the yoofs. You have only got to look at what Tottenham have spent on their new training facilities to realise how far we have fallen behind. AllHell
We played Colchester who were a very very good team, their problem was that they hardly got a shot on goal and other than a couple of shots that were saved (plus one that hit the post) we made our chances count. Best player on the pitch was ColU's smallish left winger!!! they picked him up from Ipswich... every time he got the ball he made our right back's life a misery and produced some wonderful crosses. Second best player was their No 4, a big black lad 6'4"ish and built like a brick hithouse with a thunderous shot on him.
