Academy thread 23/24

[RoyMac5]

7 hours ago, Stuniverse said:

I may not have these all correct, but I think the team v Belper Town first-half was:

1 Loach

2 Moore, 5 Bartley, 6 K.Robinson, 3 Richards?

7 ???? 4 Fapetu, 8 Hawkins

11 Nunn, 10 Lindsay, 9 Weston

—

In the second-half, Moloney came on at the break and there were three further substitute stoppages. The team that finished the match (apologies for any mistakes) I think was:

13 Shattell?

19 Osayande, 12 Johnson, 14 Moloney

18 Perry, 22 Simons, 16 Allen? 20 Gough

15 Wheeldon, 17 Davidson

21 Oseni

—

Football Webpages suggest 3 was Brown and 7 was Fatona (although they also suggest 13 was Evans, which he certainly wasn’t - well not Harry Evans any way).

How did they look, was the 12 worth signing? 😄

[Stuniverse]

39 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

How did they look, was the 12 worth signing? 😄

The #12 looks like an overage U21 player to me 😂 but he did well at CB. He was talking all the time, talking Osayande alongside him through the game, and was very vocal especially when the defence needed to push out. I think he’ll be a good ‘un. At one point, Johnson gave the assistant referee a right ear bashing, telling him you could clearly see from the direction of travel of the ball that the Belper player touched the ball last… and that was for a throw-in.

The Derby County XI, both halves, looked disjointed, like they hadn’t played together much which, in fairness, they probably haven’t. Loach was solid in goal as you’d expect, defensively and in midfield I thought the young Rams more than held their own, but Belper Town were far too streetwise for our young attacking players and we didn’t create much for the first 70 minutes or so.

Their first goal I didn’t see very well as I was talking to someone I hadn’t seen in months. I saw an innocuous ball put into our penalty area which I thought our defence would deal with and then it was in the back of the net but I missed it as I was talking. I saw someone said it was a good goal but, I felt, we should have defended the ball better.

I was impressed with Bartley in central-defence, an upgrade there on last season for me, he’s vocal, looks like a leader, read the game pretty well, and looks like he can pass as well.

K.Robinson, alongside Bartley, also impressed but in a competitive match he could easily have been sent off. Robinson caught Bastos in the face and received a yellow card which, in a competitive match could easily have been a straight red, and he was involved in a couple of other physical incidents. On the plus side, good to see him getting stuck in against a physically strong men’s team.

The second-half cohesion was disrupted by a string of substitutions by both teams, but we did look more of a threat going forward in the last 20 minutes, although Belper had also used all their subs by then.

I was impressed by Oseni and Wheeldon worked very hard as well. For our goal, Belper were attacking, Wheeldon won the ball with a clean tackle just inside our half, he then took the ball forward about 10-15 yards, before slotting a lovely pass into the path of Oseni. Oseni burst into the penalty area, looked to go past the goalkeeper, and was brought down just wide of the six-yard box. Oseni dispatched the penalty with ease, although the goalkeeper did get a hand to it.

For Belper’s second goal, Bastos (the best player on the pitch for me) was just too fast and skilful. Bastos got past Osayande in our half of the centre-circle and sprinted away from him, our second-half goalkeeper made a half-save, I’d say, pushing the ball straight up in the air inside the six-yard box, leaving Bastos to follow up and head the ball into the net.

I did see Radcliffe, D.Brown and Cox at the match but they weren’t being risked and will probably feature in some part against Chesterfield. Thompson was also there.

Surprised that Jack Bates didn’t feature at all, I wonder if he’s injured.

Buxton was the one who was barking instructions from the technical area, with A.Robinson also there.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Stuniverse

[RoyMac5]

 

[Srg]

For what it’s worth, this is the best belper squad I’ve seen. They went up a couple of years ago and it all fell apart, lost the manager and most players. They then fumbled around with another manager before settling on Lee Attenborough around new year time. It was too late to stay up and they obviously came straight back down. 

This summer though, there’s only I believe 3 returning players then 2 others who had been here before. The rest are all new and look very good. Id have them up there as one of the favourites for promotion - which is tough with only 1 automatic spot at their level. 

As @Stuniversesaid, Bastos looks far too good for the level. The winger on the opposite side looked great, Cadman in the middle too. Not many teams will mess with South and Watt at the back either. 

[Stuniverse]

13 minutes ago, Srg said:

For what it’s worth, this is the best belper squad I’ve seen

I agree @Srg. I don't get to watch the Nailers anywhere as much as I'd like but the Belper Team last night looked very good - hopefully a successful promotion push for BTFC.

I always find these "Men v Boys" clashes intriguing and it's very interesting to see how the young Rams cope with the physicality and "know how" (aka Dark Arts) seasoned non-league players bring.

[Srg]

first goal from last night. Doesn’t really do it justice, it was a really good finish. 

[Animal is a Ram]

Sir Jake of u21s.

 

[RoyMac5]

24 minutes ago, Animal is a Ram said:

Sir Jake of u21s.

 

Don't know nowt of Bucko's coaching qualities, is this a decent appointment?

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Don't know nowt of Bucko's coaching qualities, is this a decent appointment?

He's well respected by the academy players I understand. Warne and his coaching staff have worked with him now for 9 months and I think his appointment must have met with their approval as being a good fit for what they are trying to do. Hales will have had a good look at hime pre-season and must have approved of what he has seen; I think that Hales will be working closely alongside the U21 coach in his role as academy manager. Bucko oversaw the revival of the U18 team in the second half of last season. Several of that team will be stepping up to the U21 team in a lot of games this season, so he offers some continuity in that respect. On top of that he's one of us and has never let the club down. On the face of it, it seems a good appointment for me.

[Carl Sagan]

Congrats to Jake. I'm a big fan of not overlooking people within an organization if they're up to the demands of the job. No reason to think the big man isn't a great appointment, and I hope it's a much better season for the U21s a year further on from the admin fallout.

[Ambitious]

As someone who would go to war for Jake Buxton - I'm delighted for him. He did really well with the U18s last season in fairness - the growth following his appointment and during the season was significant. 

[Rample]

Congratulations and best of luck to him.

I assume in the same way as we've weeded a few staff out, we've also monitored the rest and will look to keep those who fit the ethos. 

I hope he has the required skills too, but I doubt he would have been appointed if not.

[Premier ram]

Congratulations Sir Jake, the u21s are in good hands

[Gerry Daly]

So how does this fit with Bradley Johnson's role?

[whiteroseram]

3 minutes ago, Gerry Daly said:

So how does this fit with Bradley Johnson's role?

BJ is a coach (and player), JB is Head Coach  

[RoyMac5]

 

[Ambitious]

Premier League 2 is changing format - 

Quote

 

What will be the new system and how will it work?

For the 2023/24 season, there will be only one division made up of clubs with Category One Academies.

At present there are 26 such clubs: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Brighton & Hove Albion, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Derby County, Everton, Fulham, Leeds United, Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Middlesbrough, Newcastle United, Norwich City, Nottingham Forest, Reading, Southampton, Stoke City, Sunderland, Tottenham Hotspur, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Those teams will be divided into five pots based on performances over the past three seasons.

Fixtures will be determined by a draw made according to clubs’ positions in the five seeded pots.

There will be 20 Matchweeks, with each team playing 20 regular-season matches throughout the season.

Teams will play each club in their own seeding pot once, as well as three to five teams in all other pots either home or away.

Results (three points for a win and one point for a draw) will generate a table ranking the 26 teams. After the regular season of 20 Matchweeks has completed, the top 16 teams will qualify for a single elimination playoff.

Teams will be drawn against each other based on their league positions, for example the team finishing first facing the team that finished 16th. These will be one-off elimination matches with the higher-seeded team at home.

In addition, the teams finishing the regular season in the top 12 will be invited to take part in the next season’s Premier League International Cup competition.

 

We've finished 6th out of 26, 13th out of 28 and 25th out of 25 in the past three seasons. It's difficult to see where we would be, but looks likely we will be reasonably placed despite our shocker last season. It seems almost very NFL-ish format albeit slightly different with pots being decided on past performances rather than location. 

Always interested to take note about the format of the PL2 as I know these plans are likely a beta test to see how they're finally going to organise the Premier League once they close it up. 

[Stuniverse]

UNDER-21S UPDATE: REFORMATTING OF PREMIER LEAGUE 2 FOR 2023/24 EXPLAINED
https://www.dcfc.co.uk/news/2023/07/under-21s-update-reformatting-of-premier-league-2-for-202324-explained

[angieram]

It actually sounds quite positive in terms of playing a wider variety of opposition and a knockout tournament if you qualify.

I'm sure it's the bigger clubs who want it so they can play younger players without fear of the ignominity of relegation. Their correct age group players are usually all out on loan! 

But it will help us as we rebuild, although it's difficult to finish any worse than bottom. 

[whiteroseram]

1 hour ago, angieram said:

It actually sounds quite positive in terms of playing a wider variety of opposition and a knockout tournament if you qualify.

I'm sure it's the bigger clubs who want it so they can play younger players without fear of the ignominity of relegation. Their correct age group players are usually all out on loan! 

But it will help us as we rebuild, although it's difficult to finish any worse than bottom. 

Agreed, and stops certain teams feeling they need a few more overage players in there to keep them up, you can give those moving up from U18s more time to bed in