Because it’s a (sort of) competitive game that their parent club doesn’t give a shit about (as in, there’s no real pressure or downside if they lose), other than the chance to see their youngsters in action v senior pros?
Otherwise EPL kids will rarely if ever get a shot at first team football...
Alex Hartridge to Burton. Honestly thought he would have gone back to Exeter.
The odd thing is, he got a lot of playing team in pre-season, and actually looked pretty decent in our League Cup game the other day, having had a few shockers for us last season.
I can only assume we have another...
Fair relating to us.
Personally what I think works at this level are teams that can do the ugly physical stuff, but can also get it down and play in the final third.
Our endless pingy short pass shit just doesn’t work at this level, with this quality of player, and is piss easy to defend...
Shite yet again, ineffectual tippy-tappery against Stevenage doing Stevenage things - everyone knew what this game would be like, yet we seemed completely unable to compete or offer any real ways to overcome their style.
I’ve previously said that Dodds must have at least till Xmas, but his...
Fucking toss. Wigan away - both clubs will be fuming about that one.
On reflection though, maybe it’s better this way.
Go out to a fellow unglamorous side and no-one cares.
Certainly I can’t imagine us ever putting in a classic lower league “blood ‘n’ thunder/get stuck in” cup performance...
Congratulations Vale, hope Tom Brady enjoyed that.
I’ll have to see if I can find the highlights of the Charlton game, sure it’d be a treat to see that old drama queen Jones tearing his hair out.
We were light years from being convincing and only scraped through on penalties against a...
I feel we are highly likely to come unstuck tonight against a Bromley side who put Ipswich (a better side than us) out in the previous round.
We're light in the tackle and probably too biased towards youth as it is (lacking enough cynical hairy-arsed old pros)...and I suspect the side we will...
Another day, another bunch of ineffectual tippy tappy with little real heart or spine. And we don’t have a centre forward (at least not a fit one). What is going on?
Yeah, not great to see that now we’re just one of those sides that pings the ball about with no cutting edge up front.
We’re so slow to get the ball up the pitch that it makes it very easy for the opposition defence to get back in numbers by the time we’ve made it to their final third.
Udoh up...
Well we even went beyond the stiffs and gave two academy players their senior debut.
I think Orient made changes too so neither side was at full strength.
From the highlights, it seems like we had chances but fluffed them, and in the end we were reliant on an awkward defender OG to put us through.
Dodds has openly said the league is the priority so I expect as many of the stiffs will get a run-out as possible.
That said, we’ve signed a truckload of players both in January (some of whom have still barely featured :bl:) and over the summer - so Dodds has no clue who his best XI is at this...
Exeter apparently after Kieran Sadlier on a free after he left us recently.
Very good signing…IF…you can keep him fit. Can beat his man and whip in a decent cross, it’s just the injury record that’s the point of caution.
It's obviously impossible to get these right anyway, but I even struggle to see how we'll do.
There are so many new players to gel, some of whom have come from non-English leagues so it's hard to gauge how well-equipped or otherwise they will be to the rigours of L1 football.
We were pretty...
That's a difficult one. He is definitely a good player, a mean eye for a pass and can put in some decent tackles.
He can get a bit hotheaded at times and needs to improve on the disciplinary front.
So there's certainly quality there, and I also think he would look better in a better team...