It's not about negativity it is concerns that McCabe genuinelly feels there is a bunch of players who cna play reguularly in the 1st team and better us. There is not. Barely one player.
That is just realism.
I think we have a few decent prospects (like the keeper a lot and impressed by Semple and Gilmour but these are 16/17 and a year or two away yet) but those that have been regulars in u21's (final or no final) are not good enough for a league one promotion side.
McCabe is right we do need to have a pathway or whatever other buzz word we use for young players and hope we will get a few good uns to come through (had none of note for 4 years since Maguire/Long) but there is not any ready now in my opinion. Hence this talk of cutting the budget and using youth really worries me. Wilder was desperate for this job and sure he will have been told yo use the youth more but has to show strong mentality seen from him in interviews at other clubs and quickly realise that sadly that is not the way to go in the short term. We need 6-8 players in this summer to even have a chance of the top 6. We need to ship out nearly all the dross. If we fail on these key points then we will be in the same place or worse this time next season.
I agree we don't have a bunch of players who can play regularly in the first team and better us. But what we do have is a group of young players who can provide sufficient cover to avoid us carrying a large squad of Senior players.
Take our left back position as one example. We have a large number of players who
can play in that position (McCeveley, Freeman, Done, Woolford and K.Wallace) but none is a specialist left back and none has proved good enough for a promotion chasing team.
So for me, Wilder should be looking to bring in an established, top quality (at this level) left-back and use K.Wallace and Kelly as cover for that position. That allows him to offload McCeveley, Freeman and Woolford and make better use of their high wages elsewhere.
You can repeat that process for a number of positions with the likes of Ramsdale, Whiteman, Reed, DCL and Brooks who aren't yet ready to be first choices but can step in for short periods as and when required.
That allows Wilder to concentrate his funding on bringing the quality in that's lacking in key positions. Our rivals such as Bradford and Gillingham who don't have that "low cost" strength in depth may struggle now emergency short-term loans have been prevented.