Exiled_Rover

It's a difficult job because there's literally no structure behind the scenes. Waggot, regardless of how poor he is at his job, is retiring at the end of the season. An experienced manager with a plan would absolutely love it as they'd have free reign to mould the club in their image - but it's a bloody big ask. Assuming we've still got a Cat 1 Academy after these bastards have finished flogging our training ground I'd love the next manager to promote the youth. Mowbray is terrified of doing so - mainly because he's a cack manager. Not only does it save money, but it allows t

It's also a different game now - Scholes would have been sent off a lot more nowadays.

I will say this - whoever scouts for our Academy does a bloody good job. McBride and Nolan stand out in that side - they're both products of other Academies. Seems like a lot of our players are cast offs from elsewhere.

I saw him once when he was a 21 year old in the Academy - he should be bossing the game at that age. You seem to think that everyone is wrong about him and he's a world beater. Good luck to you.

I mean he's 22. He's past being a prospect at this point. I saw him play once for the Academy and he didn't stand out at all. Good luck to him (except at Burnley), but he's clearly not good enough.

Do we have any sort of settled 11 for the Academy? It seems to be a different side every time I see them - with Thompson having disappeared off the face of the earth!

No idea about who you'd play upfront. Possibly Rooney as an inside forward on the left, Heskey as a #9 and Beckham as a wide playmaker on the right? You've obviously got Joe Cole who could play up there too and all sorts of pacey wingers.

I was saying to my friend only yesterday, imagine if the 4-3-3 formation had been in vogue when we had Scholes, Lampard and Gerrard. Scholes sitting as a deep lying playmaker, Gerrard playing as a box-to-box midfielder and Lampard playing slightly more advanced as an attacking midfielder. Magic.

Who would you drop?

His end product is still poor, but he was a nightmare for Millwall today. Never stopped harrying their back line when out of possession and never shied away from receiving the ball when we had it. He made the wrong decision a fair few times with the ball today (head down, mainly), but I'd be fine with him playing that role again on Tuesday.

By 'individualist' you mean a hugely limited player, right? The free role he's been granted by Mowbray has led to a lot of goals, but that's the only way he's contributing to the team. He was shown up today by an 18 year old winger who was thrown upfront - Dolan linked up more play in 90 minutes than Armstrong has all season.

If ever you needed a personification of how far we've fallen as a club...

Trybull for mine.

I think he's genuinely just that poor a football manager.

I swear he just throws darts at a board to pick his teams. JRC hasn't played for months. Buckley has had like 3 sub appearances all year. Last we heard Gallagher had a broken rib / punctured lung. Throw them in to the starting 11, why not.