Tony_Kaufman
Here's a truck stop instead of St Peter's
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- Nov 5, 2017
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Does anyone know why this stopped? For me I always felt that reserve team football could be a useful tool.
You go through pre-season building up your players fitness until they're ready to play 90 minutes, whilst getting back into the habit of playing again. All of a sudden the season starts. There's a bit of jockeying around until the players are back up to speed again then, if you don't pick up injuries and suspensions, you largely use the same players over and over.
Other than cup games and coming on as subs, the remainder see very little match action and all they get is training ground practise. By the time they do get a chance to start they're rusty and not as fit due to lack of practise as only a couple can play with the development team, as is my understanding.
At least with reserve team football it gave everyone a chance to play throughout the season. If you were injured you could play some reserve football until you're entirely ready for the first team, instead of rushing back in. You have a striker who hasn't scored for 5 games, drop them to the reserves so they might score a few and build up confidence. If you have a player doing okay but nothing exceptional, their position might come under threat from someone playing their position in the reserves who's form is red hot. Now you have real competition for places.
Warnock used to use it as discipline. Even Morgan was often dropped to the reserves due to making errors or getting sent off. He'd come back better for it.
Maybe this is why we have the Sanchos and Lingards now, because they can safely pick up a wage doing nothing with no incentive to play football.
Could teams organise closed door friendlies throughout the season for this purpose, or do the FA block this? If not, couldn't teams arrange this regionally? For example Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley, Doncaster Rovers and Rotherham all putting out reserve teams against each other throughout a season to keep fringe players match fit and sharp, and to help injured players return and encourge competition for places. With it being behind closed doors you wouldn't need stewards etc, just match officials and cost of hosting it. The result wouldn't matter as much so local rivalries wouldn't really come into it as much.
You go through pre-season building up your players fitness until they're ready to play 90 minutes, whilst getting back into the habit of playing again. All of a sudden the season starts. There's a bit of jockeying around until the players are back up to speed again then, if you don't pick up injuries and suspensions, you largely use the same players over and over.
Other than cup games and coming on as subs, the remainder see very little match action and all they get is training ground practise. By the time they do get a chance to start they're rusty and not as fit due to lack of practise as only a couple can play with the development team, as is my understanding.
At least with reserve team football it gave everyone a chance to play throughout the season. If you were injured you could play some reserve football until you're entirely ready for the first team, instead of rushing back in. You have a striker who hasn't scored for 5 games, drop them to the reserves so they might score a few and build up confidence. If you have a player doing okay but nothing exceptional, their position might come under threat from someone playing their position in the reserves who's form is red hot. Now you have real competition for places.
Warnock used to use it as discipline. Even Morgan was often dropped to the reserves due to making errors or getting sent off. He'd come back better for it.
Maybe this is why we have the Sanchos and Lingards now, because they can safely pick up a wage doing nothing with no incentive to play football.
Could teams organise closed door friendlies throughout the season for this purpose, or do the FA block this? If not, couldn't teams arrange this regionally? For example Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley, Doncaster Rovers and Rotherham all putting out reserve teams against each other throughout a season to keep fringe players match fit and sharp, and to help injured players return and encourge competition for places. With it being behind closed doors you wouldn't need stewards etc, just match officials and cost of hosting it. The result wouldn't matter as much so local rivalries wouldn't really come into it as much.