With 4th place pretty much out of reach, is it time to field some of the youth/fringe players in the league games? Last season saw Flanagan and Robinson get their chance (albeit enforced through injuries) towards the end of the season, and maybe now is an opportunity to give some experience to the likes of Coates, Shelvey, and Sterling, and possibly to Suso, Coady, Wisdom and Morgan. Thoughts?
a few things. 1. each league position is worth money to us, could tip the balance for a player 2. finish 5th and attract a better class of player? 3. some yuong players do need a chance, if sterling was scoring half the chances he was getting he'd be already in the squad. I think it should be a priority at some point cos maxi and a few others are pointless to be o nthe bench. 4. first team players like coates, shelvey, spearing, flanagan, kelly and the likes are not a risk at all and i would certinaly like to see them come in for adam, carragher and johnson. Idon't really see any damage to the team in that. overall I'd be i nthe cap that says pick one or two guys to come in now who merit it. benitez had chance after chance to develop a kid and never took it. kids like suso and sterling plateau after a time and end up not fulfilling. in my view only sterling and MAYBE suso merit a go. in the end in 5 years we need to be seeing at least 5 of the "young" investments made being strong squad members, coates, shelvey,sterling and suso can be added to henderson to be that and on top of that we've the nice bit of scouse in kelly, flanno and robinson. ONLY 2 guys there have not a first team debut...
Would love to see some of our youth get a chance but there are 12/13 games left this season and a lot CAN happen between now and say end of April. If our league position does not change by then by all means bring a few youngsters through.But whilst there is still a slender chance of 4th (doubtful) we should put our 1st team out.Agree that our fringe players should be given the chance to play instead of being on the bench Maxi,Shelvey,Spearing are in that group
I agree it's maybe too early to give up on 4th, but the way I look at it is this, is Coates more of a risk than Carragher, or Shelvey than Adam in these remaining games? I'm not saying Adam or Carragher aren't up to it, but we won't lose a lot from the side if the other two play. I agree with MITO, it's important that we finish as high as we can in terms of money, and the attraction for incoming players, but we are already in Europe next year, and are potential incoming players going to be that interested in whether we finished 5th, 6th, or 7th? We also have a lot of talent in our youth side, and as MITO says, I'd be gutted if they weren't given the chance to develop in the first team squad, as happened with a few under Rafa.
There are certainly a few first team players who I'd say haven't earned an automatic starting place over the course of the year but unfortunately they are also the ones who we invested hard cash in during the summer so its a tough one really. No club can afford to write off expensive acquisitions (city apart) so I think we are unlikely to see any influx of youth into the first team unless/until fourth place becomes mathematically impossible.
I'm not saying we write any players off, I just think it may be a good time to give some of these lads some experience, though maybe we should wait and see where we are after the next 4 or 5 games.
Although Id really like to see them now. I totally agree that maybe see what the league table looks like in 4 or 5 games time. It's a funny old game so there may be a few twists and turns yet to come. Plus the fact we need our big boys to stay match fit for the FA cup game(s) - resting some of them could be problematic as sharpness levels may drop. It's a tough one, but I trust Kenny to do the right thing.
I don't think he is quite there yet, I expect to see more of him next season with him making a bigger impact in 2013-14 season.
