ElLobo posted:- Cant agree with that, as sensible as it sounds.
Last summer the manager was left in a bit of a hole and had to put his faith in youngsters, and he was cut slack accordingly. There has to be a certain level of expectation now though, so if he decided that he'd bed more youngsters in this season at the cost of points and positions then I dare say he wouldn't be cut the same slack.
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So what do you suggest is the way the fella in charge bloods his youngsters - back then now or in the future? Doing it on the training pitch is no substitute for the match-day scenario and when a manager has little funds at his disposal, what other choices does he or indeed do the fans have?
In crude parlance it's called shit or get off the pot time. The fans have either to back his hunches or cut him adrift after a while of waiting.
It was the same at United in 1989 when Fergie's arse was hangin' out the window until the class of 92 came through the youth ranks - and I think you know the rest of that story.
The way you'd want to include the younger players is almost always the same. You start off by giving them 5-10 minutes. You do that a few times. Then you remove them and have the play Reserve team football. Give them a taste of it. You do this and gradually you play them more and more. When you play them, you'd want them to play beside more experienced players. It's for example better to play Wisdom at RB, with Enrique, and two from Agger, Skrtel and Carra, than it is to play Coady with Shelvey and Henderson in CM.
If you want this to be successful, you need to have some balance in the squad. You look at our defence and we've had a fine balance in age and seniority.
You can't always get this. What you can do though, is you can try and give yourself the right environment. And if we expand on that a little, just look at the number of young players we have. It's very difficult to give them the best possible introduction. One side of that is you say the manager can't do much. He had no option but to play the young players and that's that. But you could also question why we spent all our money on younger players, when there was a need for more experience.
If we now bring in Toure to this, he could well be used as kind of a father figure. Meaning his real use for the team isn't mainly to improve our defence through his own play. It's rather to ensure that other players get on the right track. He's there to provide a bit of balance and experience, which will make it easier for younger defenders to make the grade.
