U21 - News & Fixtures 22/23

Where I think our kids are right now based on the Southampton u21 game.

Klaasen - Decent shot stopper. Distribution is nowhere near good enough and would cost us plenty of goals. Bringing Robles in was a good decision. He won't be our first choice keeper in the future.

Hjelde - Big, strong, vocal, good feet, no nonsense. I like him. He's still making naive mistakes but is too good for u21 football. Would benefit hugely with a stint in the Championship or even a season in Scotland. He will be a very good professional footballer in the future if we are patient with him.

Archive Gray - Might be controversial here so brace yourselves. He runs around alot and literally throws himself in to tackles. If he carries on he will break his legs soon. Someone needs to have a word with him. Still very young so obviously he will improve but at the moment he is lucky to be in the 21's and not the 18's. Nowhere near ready and wonder if the family name is giving him a leg up. I'm not writing him off as he is so young but from what I saw he doesn't seem to be the stand out player we are told he is.

Gyabi - Quick feet, great passer when he has time on the ball but often turns in to trouble and concedes possession cheaply on dangerous areas. Needs to do the simple thing more often. Not ready to step up and would be a liability with the first team. Needs to learn when to take a chance and when to play safe. If he does that, we have a player on our hands but at the moment is nowhere near the standard required. Tbh I don't think he will make it as a top level player.

Perkins - Played as a 10. Wasn't impressed one bit. Constantly gave the ball away, wasn't strong enough to hold players off. Couple of times he got the ball out of his feet and then could see that the kid can strike a ball. Reminded me very much of Sam Greenwood. Can't see this kid playing top level football either.

Gnonto - Oozes quality. First team ready. Very stocky for an 18 year old. Doesn't need anymore weight on him. Not as quick as I thought he would be but still fast enough. His low centre of gravity and his strength are his biggest assets allowing him to change direction quickly whilst holding players off. Finishing wasn't great but he played wide left and linked up exceptionally well in the first half. His decision making on when to pass and when to take his man on was very good and I was massively impressed how he picked out teammates in tight areas with his nicely weighted first time passes. He is one of those players that attracts defenders when he has the ball he finds a way to pass the ball out of tight areas. On a few occasions last night he took 3 or 4 defenders out of the game with a 3 yard pass. Tired in the 2nd half quite badly and became sloppy. Get him on the bench with the first team, game changer.

Summerville - Reminds me of Walcott when he broke through. Think he was involved in all 6 goals. Excellent work ethic, great touch, pace to burn, great awareness, great tackler, great presser, can finish, can pass short or long with either foot. Nothing more to say on him really other than this kid will play at a very high level. If we give him a run of games to let him settle I'm not sure either Harrison or Sinisterra would displace him.

By the way, Firpo had an OK game but still had the obligatory **** pass which nearly resulted in a goal, got skinned by a 17 year old and then started hacking him down. Maybe a stint with the U18's to see if he can play at that level.

 

Didn't see Matteo Joseph for long but he got bullied off the ball quite easily. Needs to bulk up.

 

I did wonder if he had improved.

 

I am hoping one of these steps up to replace Greenwood in the matchday squad.
Summerville had my doubts about him stepping up and still do. Until i see him at first team level against a top ten side making an impact i will reserve my judgement. Gray needs to go back to 18s level and grow in maturity before he loses himself.

 

Cheers Emu, been looking forward to this.

Hope you enjoyed the game

 

Movement is good, decent pace. Caught offside needlessly one time. Looks a good player, just not strong enough to handle the big defenders in the PL. Get him in the gym, let him fill out a bit and he might progress.

 

Bit concerned about the ok mark for firpo which suggests he had an average 5.5/6 game which is a improvement on a **** mark of say a 3, is this because you have changed your opinion or was you on the sauce all match

 

Thanks. I'm big headed enough to think I can spot a player on a single game!

The first team lads Cooper, Ayling and Bamford along with Summerville and to a lesser extent Gnonto all looked to be miles ahead of every other player on the pitch. Like I say, Gnonto faded big time 2nd half although I think the gameplan was to just give it Summerville on the other wing and let him do the damage.

To be honest, Gnonto is built like a miniature Yeboah. Not the Yeboah we initially signed, the one a few years later after a few thousand Yorkshire puddings. The lad is 18, his head is ****ing huge and his body not far behind. He looks strong as an ox, a real 5ft 2" monster of a lad if there is such a thing. Hopefully he doesn't "fill out" any more or we might have a Tomas Brolin figure on our hands.

 

Thing is...the other lads Coops, Ayling and Bamford all looked another level playing the kids from Southampton. Literally men vs boys. Firpo did OK, didn't stand out. Him and Klaasen ****ed up between them once and the striker missed a sitter, Firpo passed the ball to their winger once which allowed them to counter. He then got absolutely skinned by a 17 year old and two minutes later felled him with what looked like a forearm in to the face. He didn't really get forward like Ayling did on the other wing because he knew the young lad he was marking would easily outpace him if we suddenly had to get back. The only time he did bomb on was when the lad was down injured (after the forearm smash) and he promptly missed a sitter from about 6 yards out with nobody around him.

In short, I'd expect him to stand out at this level and he didn't. He just did OK. If he was 18 or 19 year old you wouldn't come away from that game thinking that he would be a genuine prospect.

 

Very worrying.

 

Most of the media who were there last night have all the team averaging 7/10 a couple of 6s, but MOM Summerville with 9 Bamford 9, Gnonto 8 and Perkins 8 Ayling and Cooper 7s with a mention of ring rusty Cooper at the start?

 

Summerville was about as good as you can get. Unbelievably good. I can't put in to words just how good he was. Best individual performance I've seen since....since...I don't know if I've seen a better one.

Bamford didn't do too much but got a hat trick and that's what he is there for. He had a goal wrongly disallowed for offside in the first half too with a great finish.

Ayling and Cooper did look a bit rusty but you could just tell they were quality players playing beneath their usual level.

Perkins lucky to get a high score imo. Thought he was very sloppy. To be fair, the things that came off for him did look class but for every one time something worked there was another 10 that were given away. Took his goal well and produced a sublime 40 yard ball out to Gnonto but other that that he was pretty poor.

 

I understand what you are saying about Firpo, I'm just hoping that the average performance against a set of young players is down to a lack of game time. Was the last time he played a competitive match against Brentford in May last season?

 

Agree with you on a lot of this.

Disagree about Perkins, though. Me & the lads sitting around us thatought he was great in the first half & poor in the second. Shows you how much we know - the u21 manager thought the reverse! LOL. I thought he was a fairly big unit, was available & industrious. No hiding, always wanting to be involced. Well, that was the first half. Faded badly in the 2nd imo. I had noticed him hovvling a few times & when some subs were happening, he was on the ground playing with his foot. Perhaps he was carrying a knock in the second half.

Absolutely loved our wingers - who played as wingers, I might add! Fast AF! Gnonto surprised me. I don't know why, but didn't expect him to look like Brighton's Lamptey on steroids. I'd have him in the first team for a cameo sub run-out next game. No hesitation. Wouldn't hesitate with Summerville either.

I was disappointed in our defence, tbh. 3 out of the 4 were first-teamers, yet we conceded 2 goals to a poor team of kids. Hjelde was head & shoulders above the other 3. I also agree that Klaeson's distribution was poor. Just as poor as Meslier's recently. TBF to Meslier, under Bielsa he always had his FBs & wingers hugging the touchline to aim for, or KP making himself available. Now we've got this narrow approach, it's more difficult to find someone to aim for from the box. Every fcuker is in the middle. Ok, an exaggeration, but not so far from the truth.

Gray? I agree. Needs a lot more playing time to learn the game. Very effective at what he does. At times. Needs to slow it down a little at times & control that aggression. If he doesn't, he's gone. He'd be a liability imo. Mustn't forget that he is indeed a real prospect. I wonder if he'll break through this season, or go out on loan next season (or perhaps January if we dip into the market & don't need him to make up the squad numbers.

In conclusion, have to say that it was a cracking match. Really enjoyed it.

 

Probably. Cooper, Ayling not far off that either though and they just looked like they should be playing higher. Not so much with Firpo.

I know it seems I have it in for Firpo but I genuinely want him to prove me wrong. My signature "Firpo is ****!" is just to wind Blono up. If Firpo succeeds, the team improves and that's what we all want at the end of the day. It's just not what I saw on Friday night. He was just an average player.

 

Lol, I thought Perkins was poor but improved 2nd half. Funny how the game is interpreted.

Hjelde had a poor first 15 minutes but was excellent afterwards. Very cool and calm presence. I also thought the defence were overly exposed by Gyabi and Perkins giving the ball away in our own half allowing Southampton to run at our back line with superior numbers. Gray never really got a foothold in the game as far as dictating play. He was more content to run around slide tackling like someone out of a computer game controlled by a 8 year old who hasn't figured out how to switch players yet.

But agree. Great game.

 

Personally thought Firpo was average to good for someone playing in what was effectively his first pre season game. Let's see how he does over the coming weeks as he gets back up to speed and hopefully gains the necessary match fitness although I would add that his general fitness was very high considering the lengthy lay off.

Just great to see him back along with Bamford, Ayling & Coops

 

Agree, that's a fair point but Cooper and Ayling have had a little game time. I'm just an optimist and hoping we actually have a LB.

 

Fair game.