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Reserves

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the_khl

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If their encounter against United is actually played come Thursday it'll be the Reserves first game in about two months.

I know we've been talking about the obvious lack of fixtures for the Reserves in England before, but this is getting really abysmal isn't it?

How does anyone think that the youngsters will actually develop good in-game attributes so to speak, when they are so rarely beeing given the opportunity to do so?

Anyone know if the overall Reserve-fixture setup is beeing scrutinized these days or whether everyone's satisfied for the time beeing?
 
[quote author=Ossi link=topic=38387.msg1031385#msg1031385 date=1263218335]
The reserve teams should be in the league system. End of.
[/quote]
That would be the ideal solution. I kind of understand however why it's been divided into areas as North and South to minimize travelling expenses, but something along those lines just geographically divided.

You could then take the best of the Championship teams as well to add up the numbers in each league (Necastle/Boro in the North-league etc.) and then maybe play the winners of each league in some sorts of final.
 
It IS a shambles. They need a good cup competition as well, because young reserves need to acquire experience in how to play one-off games as well as league games, and a good cup competition would attract a bit more of a following. But mainly they need far more serious competitive games. It doesn't help how the likes of Redknapp don't even bother with the current set-up - that's helping no one - but change is needed urgently.
 
[quote author=gkmacca link=topic=38387.msg1031411#msg1031411 date=1263220131]
It IS a shambles. They need a good cup competition as well, because young reserves need to acquire experience in how to play one-off games as well as league games, and a good cup competition would attract a bit more of a following. But mainly they need far more serious competitive games. It doesn't help how the likes of Redknapp don't even bother with the current set-up - that's helping no one - but change is needed urgently.
[/quote]
That makes perfect sense.

There's even a FA Youth Cup for the U18s.

It's all rather odd.
 
I suggested this format before and I will suggest it again:

1. Make it compulsory that all 20 teams in the Premier League enter a reserve squad in the Premier League Reserve League(s).

2. Split the 20 teams into 2 leagues based on geography, which is already done. I think its Reserve League South and North (might be wrong).

3. Have the teams play home and away + one more fixture against each other. They can alternate between home and away in alternate years, e.g. Liverpool will play Scum home twice and away once this season and next season it will be reversed (1 home and 2 away). This will ensure that all teams play 27 games in a season. If they really want, they can have teams from north and south meet each other once instead of playing each other in their respective leagues thrice. In this case, each team will play 28 games.

4. Run the reserve league season from August to April. That's 9 months and 3 games a month.

5. The winners of the 2 respective leagues can meet in May over two legs to determine the overall Reserves league champions.

6. In order to ensure that English players are groomed, they can craft a rule to say that out of the 16 man squad 6-8 have to be English players under the age of 21 or something. Also, maybe only a max of 3 players 25 and above can be in the squad for every game. This is to allow first team players who are recovering from injury or need match fitness to play. Otherwise, the rest have to be 24 and below. (Obviously these age limits can be changed).

7. The Premier League should also ensure that there it pays of a portion of the expenses incurred for running a reserve team, after all it's part of youth development which it has said that it will play a part in.
 
Lower leagues should be split north and south too. A stockport county fan I know is happy they are going down (if they stay in business) as it means he'll be able to afford away trips again since league one has loads of southern teams whereas league two has more within reasonable distance.
 
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