I am obviously not against giving the youngsters game if they are ready. I am against setting arbitary targets for minutes played as that encourages playing them whether they are ready or not. As has been the case with some of the players (in those years that we did hit these stupid targets) that did play that werent ready to do so. Garrett, Vale, Leonard etc. It cuts the cost because it means we sign less players expecting kids to make up the numbers. If Suhail, Waggott, Gestede or Sufi said the sky was green you would believe them.

JDT spent much of his time publically calling out the owners because when he called for an actual competent striker, he wasnt given one, just a crap freebie from Plymouth, a german 4th division player and a rubbish loanee. Hence why he had no other option but to play Vale and Leonard. He had no alternative but to use the likes of Garrett and Markanday too. That weirdly was the season we may have hit these stupid targets but also the one we slid down into relegation danger and he got so pissed off he walked. This is why communication is so important from the clubs perspective. They can talk any old shite and some will swallow it up. There were 2 reasons why we hit those targets a year or 2 ago. One was that we had two talents capable of playing Championship football at such a young age purely on merit, one exceptional one in particular. The other was because cut backs meant that we didnt have enough players not to fill the squad full of graduates even though most werent ready. If you genuinely believe in a "footballing plan" here then you must have lived under a rock for a number of years. Its purely a plan of cutting costs glamorised to appear to have the best interests of the team in mind. Padding out the squad with kids means you dont have to sign as many. Who cares if they are all ready to play.

The problem is that when sky repeatedly say the best league in the world, those lacking critical faculty swallow it up and assume its constantly the case. All I know is that this season, the Premier League has been shite. A title "race" and relegation "fight" all done and dusted with so many games still left to play. The main supposed talking point from the weekend just gone was a player being booed by his own fans. That isnt down to the growing financial inequality that makes it harder and harder for teams to avoid embarassing relegation once they go up. Its because one of them signed a poor quality keeper.

Its the fans fault this is happening and its necessary due to FFP.

Certainly hasnt been the best league in the world this season. No title race and the gap between the Premier League and the Championship growing and growing due to the financial inequalities that grow and grow.

Another day, yet more shame cast upon the club. The club is full of useless arse lickers. Suhail, Waggott, Gestede, Yasir Sufi. Get rid of all of them though and still the problem remains. That claim that they never refuse to write a cheque becomes more and more laughable by the day.

If you do manage to stay in the Premier League then more than one year of the money then gives you a platform to then stablise but its so hard now to even do that. Forest got loads of criticism for their approach but it worked and it took a ridiculous amount of money just to scrapr survival in that first season. I stand by my point that the gap between Premier League and Championship is unhealthily big. No surprise that in 2 successive seasons the promoted sides have come straight back down in mainly embarassing fashion. Ipswich did spend quite big but all they can attract/afford in wages is top end Championship players. The Premier League has been terrible this season.

Exactly, and Gestede's comments totally lacked any context. They make out as if its a lapse in attitude and a bit of a dig at Eustace. But the reason for the change is down to players. The reason the minutes were so high in the 2 seasons prior to the one just gone were because we had first team ready talents in Adam Wharton and to a lesser extent Ash Phillips. We also had budget cuts the season before last so the likes of Leonard (who was injured for the majority of the season just gone anyway) and Garrett were given more minutes than they were ready for. Now those first team ready players have been sold, we naturally dont have that same level of talent. We cant just hand out minutes to meet an arbitary objective. It is cost cutting because if we glamourise this aim, then to get them those minutes, we will need a player or two less in the transfer market. So yes, cost cutting.

I think there is sometimes even 7 at Saturday dinnertime. 3 x Championship, 2 x League 1, 2 x League 2.

Exactly. This desperation to get back to them playing loads of minutes is just a cost cutting exercise.

He missed the game v us with a virus so im not sure if hes fully over it but your point is a valid one in general. Sheffield United finished on 16 points in the Premier League. Theyve come down and accumulated 92 and not even got promoted automatically because 2 other parachute payment teams both hit 100 points, before swatting aside 6th in a humiliating and uncompetitive semi final. Youve got a horrible mix of promoted sides getting embarassingly low points tallies in predictable relegations and relegated sides being miles too good for the Championship.

I dont know. No one can possibly know based on a few small cameos and one start where he got sent off and thats my point. I was trying to ask Parson if he felt confident in any/a number of the young lads being ready immediately to play because he knows more than me about them individually (and more than you) and you seem really keen to hijack it. On the Gestede stuff, you are being pedantic. He is keen to revert back to giving graduates loads of minutes. "They have to be part of your squad planning." Maybe the current crop arent ready to play that level of gametime as a group. It doesnt help when the 2 stand out youngsters who accumulated a large number of those minutes have since been sold, theres no context to what he is saying. It shouldnt be a set objective, and they dont seem arsed on the quality of those graduates, IMO its all a cost cutting, standard lowering situation being dressed up. Pad the squad out with kids because you wont get the budget to provide the squad depth you need to sustain yourselves over a season and make it seem like a positive. You dont have to justify every single thing that the club does, to the point where you are repeatedly butting into conversations.

None of that addresses my points regarding the growing inequality, the total lack of competiveness and thus excitement in this Premier League season or the growing unsustainability regardless of a clubs ambition in running a football club in spite of increasing TV deals and ticket prices. Teams come up to the Premier League, spend lots of money but such is the gap between the leagues, stumble back down in embarassing fashion.

Do you have confidence in any in particular to be up to the standard of playing Championship football as soon as next season? And would you feel comfortable if there is an expectation to give them a certain number of minutes next season, especially if its done whilst perhaps signing one or two less more established players? To me it is undoubtedly another cost cutting exercise that they are trying to glamorise. Montgomery got a few cameos when Brittain was out and Tyjon one token cameo but otherwise none of the others got a sniff last season at a time when Ismael up until the last couple of games regularly talked about planning for next season. But I would be interested to know if there are any in particular that you have reasonable confidence in being ready now. For example, would you be happy to see us let say Pickering go in the confidence that Powell can step up? Would you happily forego signing a midfielder as you deem Montgomery ready? Would you avoid signing a centre back in favour of having Litherland as a first team centre back? Or any others.

Of course the pyramid is fucked. Its not just ambitious teams looking for quick success that are showing big losses, basically every team is. We are unambitious and not arsed about success and we show big losses. TV deals grow bigger, fans become less important, ticket prices go up yet the losses get higher and higher. This will be the second season in a row where all 3 promoted teams have come down and none of them have been competitive. This has to be up there with the worst Premier League seasons ever. The fact that Ipswich spent so much and yet the conclusion was that they have spent to build a really strong Championship side in the following season shows how big the gap is. All the money goes to the top and creates a chasm in quality.

Giving a head coach an artbitary target whereby he has to give graduates a certain amount of minutes very much screams bringing youngsters through for the sake of it. Even with Montgomery, I am not fully confident that he can be counted on as a Championship level player yet based on a few cameos and a solitary start in which he got sent off, all out of position.

Do you think they are ready for first team Championship football now? And do you think there are a flurry of kids that are ready now as it seems likely that they are going to be pushed through ready or not. You know much more about these players than me but I noticed that Powell couldnt get a game for Altrincham. And do you agree with Gestede that we should have an objective of 3,000 minutes for graduates that needs to be met?

The 3 teams that have come up this season are all going down in embarassing fashion because none have anywhere near enough quality to compete. The gap between Premier League and Championship is as big as it ever has been, the whole pyramid is fucked financially. Southampton are celebrating getting to 12 points. Ipswich signed quite a few top players at Championship level and have been miles off

Blackburn could soon have a pressing need to bring Yates to Ewood Park if young striker Joe Boggan is sold by the Rovers, after Football Insider revealed that five clubs across Europe want the 17-year-old. Great journalism. We could have a pressing need to replace a kid who has never played proper football with a journeyman 28 year old Championship striker. Yates is average, would probably prefer Ohashi. Would be better competition than Gueye but I suspect he wont be coming here anyway and that is a dodgy source linking a million and one teams with him.

The Premier League has been terrible this season. The champions and the bottom 3 all sorted with so many games to go has removed any sort of spectacle. We are just in a position where teams go up and come straight back down with really low points totals. The likes of Fulham, Brentford, Bournemouth and Brighton will be probably comfortable for the forseeable with the same teams yoyo-ing between Premier League and Championship. You then have a pyramid that is also fucked, desperately chasing the latest increased sky deal, constantly increasing ticket prices and willingly inconvenicing fans yet losing more and more money year on year despite this with the money all landing in the pockets of the players and agents.

Didnt Cantwell only get loads of stick becuase of his personality rather than ability/inability?

Dolan? Based on? You keep saying those 2 countries for our incoming signings too.

Obviously not.

We shouldnt sign Sanderson permanently and certainly not for £1m. And theres no chance that we have 90% of our business done at any point of pre season. Managers always say they want business done early but wont happen especially here when we will be begging for loans late in the window.

The thing is, it implies that their current ticketing policies will definitely generate more income. For example, abolish this early bird shite and you would have a full summer whereby its much more likely that people will eventually decide to buy season tickets. Also, you are always battling quantity v price and hitting a sweet spot. Reducing prices will increase quantity short term, so its getting not only that balance. But realising that increasing numbers short term will likely get more people in the habit to then buy season tickets going forward, as well as more additional purchases eg things like food/drink and merchandise.