There's been some debate on boards like this over the last few years as to why our youngsters rarely seem to make it into the first team. There could be several reasons, but you have to wonder why certain players don't get chances in games like yesterday's. For example, Danny Emerton is supposed to be one of our brightest talents and a year ago he was an unused sub against Wigan in the cup. A year later, and apparently several good reserve performances (OLM? Mussie?) he doesn't even make the bench for a similar cup game. He was also an unused sub in the Macclesfield league cup game when we made no attacking change at all and were losing 2-0, if it isn't worth using him then, when is it? How are young players supposed to develop without being given a chance in the first team even in cup games?
its a good point, but a difficult balance, if they had played a load of youngsters yesterday you would get miserable traditionalists like me whinging that we should be playing a strong side and trying to get through i thought emerton would have been sent on loan to a league 1 side by now.
I know a few young'uns that go into the City ranks, but alot have been turned away and some end up at Scunny, which is a sorry situation when a league 1 team have a better youth development set up than us. Sometimes you have to put it down to them not being good enough.
I can never figure out what's going on with Emerton, I think he has the potential to be good enough to play at this level and I thought it last season. He looks good for the reserves, he looks good in pre-seasons, yet he never seems to get any first team opportunities. He's definitely better than Cullen or Atkinson and way better than Featherstone, you'd think he'd either get a chance or he'd be loaned out. With Nick deciding to field a half decent team yesterday and with Steward, Brady, Garcia, Mclean, Simpson all involved, it was always going to be hard to get him onto the pitch, but you'd expect him to get a chance somewhere down the line. At least now we have Cairney and Cooper who are in and around the first team squad, along with a couple of others who aren't far behind(Bradley, East, Townsend etc).
Indeed, it's certainly better than 3 or 4 years ago when our only prospect was Featherstone, and as dj says it's impossible to fit everyone in and please everyone. But you'd think someone of Emerton's apparent ability would have a chance to test himself at a competitive level at some point.
With Barmby Coaching the youth team recently and been around the Centre of Excellence I am hoping he pushes for some investment in the whole set up. He seems keen to Improve the club from top to bottom playing the same type of football ect.. and our Centre of Excellence needs some money spent on it. We have no Indoor Facilities at all and are spending the winter months training at the KC astro turf one of the worst surfaces in the City . Scunny ,Lincoln,Grimsby, Rotherham and Donny all have a better set up we do have the better youth coaches though.
We really need to do what United have done with us. Find a club in League Two who is willing to take our players on loan and if they don't make it take them permanantly with a view to buy back clauses, sell on clauses etc... Just try something that the top clubs are trying, and something that is fairly in modern in the way football is run.
