Don't know how many have seen this news story doing the rounds today. Basically Villas-Boas is claiming that English football should adopt the European model of allowing the 'Elite' teams to field a B side in the championship rather than having a reserve team. He basically cites the lack of proper competition in the reserves leagues to be holding back youth development in England. He doesn't go as far as mentioning what would happen to the teams already IN the championship though, or how to define the 'elite' and how to decide who is allowed a B team. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jan/19/villas-boas-premier-league-b-championship The general idea is summed up by this, for those of you who can't access the article: I think it's a terrible idea that would only serve to inflate the egos of the Sky giants, and widen the gulf in talent even within the Premiership, leading to an even less competitive top-flight.
He should cut his teeth and manage down here first before he got a big job with loads of money to spend, lets see how good the **** is then
Too right, I haven't seen much to encourage me that he is cut out for premiership management, let alone trying to dictate the structure of our league system! Would be interesting to hear some of the other 'elite' club managers thoughts, versus some of those clubs who wouldn't get a B side, and those who would have to step out of the Championship to allow this to happen.
lower league clubs and to a certain extent some premiership clubs have always been feeder clubs and stepping stone clubs for the big clubs....unfortunately for leeds they are no longer classed as a big club that can attract the best players anymore and you can thank bates for that.
In my opinion, football should be run based on the principle what's best for matchgoing supporters is what's best for football. Do matchgoing supporters want to watch their team playing a Chelsea B Team? Do they ****. Rather play York City or Ossett Town than some reserve side with a few anoraks in the stands being the only ones in attendance. **** that. The lower leagues aren't here to be exploited by the 'big boys', and I say that as the fan of a club who'd probably have been promoting this sort of idea 10 years back. **** off AVB you Chelsea ****.
If Chelsea want to sign some of the most promising players in world football, then they should play them. Otherwise, let them go somewhere they'll get games. The Championship has West Ham, Southampton, Us (obviously), Leicester etc. that bring in big crowds every week. Then in League One and Two, they still get crowds of up to 20,000. That's the difference between Spanish football and English football - in the Spanish 4th division, there are crowds in there 100s. But here, they are in there 1000s. It's a completely different place, which is why the idea works in Spain and not in England. They should just play the young players. Look at Wilshire - he didn't have to play in some reserve team to become a good player. Arsenal gave him game time. Maybe Chelsea should do the same. And yes, maybe young players aren't getting the opportunity and due to a lack of a competitive reserve team, they don't progress. But then the top clubs shouldn't be allowed to scoop up all the best young players. If the lower league teams are expected to invest time giving opportunities to young players, they should get a reward for it. So like Wickham was a promising young player and Ipswich got the reward for developing him in 8 million, the same with Oxlaide Chamblein at Southampton.
if big clubs are going to mop up the lower leagues for talent, then they should consider looking at themselves as to how such a network of players got a way from there grasp!
These managers who have operated in other european leagues and think their model works seem to miss the key point of the History of football in this country. Clubs from the Prem right down to the blue square leagues have enormous history and have been around for upto a century and in most cases even longer. You cannot just waltz into English football and assume that because your team is playing in the top division with a team competing in Europe that the other clubs with thousands of fans should have to face being thrown to one side or at the very least suffer a major restructuring of league football in England on the whims of bigger clubs. Also you can cite Barcelona as a great example of this cause but they were pretty **** for a number of years before the early 2000's and many other teams operate these 'B' teams and they werent working for them during the tricky times and there dont seem to be doing much for the teams that dont have Barcelona's pick of the best players in Spain and South America. Edit: There is no reason why there cant be restructuring and significant brand building of reserve team football however to encourage it to matter more to fans.
