The result last night should be a wake up call to the owner, but it won't be. Some of our youngsters are A) not ready or b) not good enough, Johnny Jackson is saying that they are trying hard to bring in some loan signings. Maybe before Saturday. But I will believe it when I see it.
Some clubs spent the summer building a squad. Mid august and we are still scrabbling around trying to finish our one.
Lee Bowyer was in the stands. As it was largely a development squad Euell and Jackson took the team. Bowyer wanted to see whether any other players could step up to the first team. I think he got his answer. He also travelled independently of the squad. Mascoll, Cummings and Blumberg were particularly poor last night. Which is not great because Cummings and Blumberg are our centre half cover. If either Baeur or Sarr get injured on Saturday, we are in **** street.
You can only go to the Well so often, before it runs dry. Are we really saying that our sole defensive cover through to January is Sarr and Djiksteel ? We already know how injury prone Solly, Page and Pearce are. This is a decision guaranteed to come back and bite us on the arse.
I think we need 3 players in minimum on loan by 31 August: A utility defender who can play LB and CB An attacking midfielder A striker
It looks like that between 8-9 players made their debuts last night. That must be some sort of unwanted record. What a shambles.
Benjamin Hayes - being the boring pedant that he is - has just corrected you on that over on Wally Life
Fans slagging Bowyer off on CL for naming a weakened team Some anoraks really do know fvck all about football.
I thought you might at least have appreciated Benjamin's quote from LB that he was there but he didn't think he was involved
Only he nicked that joke off me from yesterday - I said it was the alibi of the Westminster car terrorist
I thought Bowyer did the right thing last night. That game was a good chance for some youngsters on the fringe of the squad to gain experience. I hope LB does the same thing in the Checkatrade Trophy games and the FA Cup.
I really don't see much need to get on Bowyers back after last night. If we'd lost 2-1 with some of the older palyers, and lost another one through injury, he'd have been pilloried for not resting players in an unimportant cup. There was a certain feel of a replay of Rochdale here - we could have tried harder and hoped for a good home draw next round. And sending so many untried youngsters at once out on an away tie can't really have taught them much more than that football can be hard. But our squad leaves him little room to manoeuvre, and if (If!!) we win at Accrington saturday, much will be forgiven. What is painfully obvious is that we need more players with experience, and there is little sense in waiting till the last day of the loan window to get them in. This really has been a summer to forget at the Valley, but the autumn could be much harder if we don't get some fresh legs in now.
