José Ángel Pozo

[spinzer]

Good to see the lad debut last night.

He's been in the squad a lot this season so it's obvious Pellegrini rates him.

Hopefully he can keep getting gametime when we're 2 or 3 goals up and in the FA Cup, just ease him in and see how he does.

Unfurtunately there will be no space for him when Silva, Dzeko and kolarov is back.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Good to see the lad debut last night.

He's been in the squad a lot this season so it's obvious Pellegrini rates him.

Hopefully he can keep getting gametime when we're 2 or 3 goals up and in the FA Cup, just ease him in and see how he does.

Unfurtunately there will be no space for him when Silva, Dzeko and kolarov is back.

There won't, but there should be imo.

We can afford one place on the bench for a young player for some games, & it's time we started to move more towards that way of thinking & then bringing more of them into the first team picture.

 

[Hungarian blue]

Good to see the lad debut last night.

He's been in the squad a lot this season so it's obvious Pellegrini rates him.

Hopefully he can keep getting gametime when we're 2 or 3 goals up and in the FA Cup, just ease him in and see how he does.

Unfurtunately there will be no space for him when Silva, Dzeko and kolarov is back.

There won't, but there should be imo.

We can afford one place on the bench for a young player for some games, & it's time we started to move more towards that way of thinking & then bringing more of them into the first team picture.

That would mean, though, that we need to reduce our so called 'first team squad'. If we want Pozo/Lopes as a proper option, then our other 4 players are too much for those (mostly) 2 positions. However, as we did not replace Negredo this summer, it means that there is actually one place left for the 22 players we should have in our first team, maybe that's reserved for Iheanacho, who knows.

As for Pozo, at least tomorrow he should still be in the squad now that Jovetic is out. That means Dzeko replaces him either on the bench or in the first eleven and Pozo makes the bench again as Silva's out still. Sinclair is totally forgotten and rightly so if we've got such talents. I would love if he would make his PL home debut.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Unfurtunately there will be no space for him when Silva, Dzeko and kolarov is back.

There won't, but there should be imo.

We can afford one place on the bench for a young player for some games, & it's time we started to move more towards that way of thinking & then bringing more of them into the first team picture.

That would mean, though, that we need to reduce our so called 'first team squad'. If we want Pozo/Lopes as a proper option, then our other 4 players are too much for those (mostly) 2 positions. However, as we did not replace Negredo this summer, it means that there is actually one place left for the 22 players we should have in our first team, maybe that's reserved for Iheanacho, who knows.

As for Pozo, at least tomorrow he should still be in the squad now that Jovetic is out. That means Dzeko replaces him either on the bench or in the first eleven and Pozo makes the bench again as Silva's out still. Sinclair is totally forgotten and rightly so if we've got such talents. I would love if he would make his PL home debut.

I don't understand what you mean.

Most of the kids are well under 21 & even if they were older, most would qualify as club trained. We could have a whole team & reserve team of them in the first team squad & still have 25 places left for the current squad .

At the start of a season we are in 4 competitions. We currently have 4 strikers, 2 creative mids, 3 centre mids, 2 wide mids, 4 fullbacks, 4 centre backs 2 keepers. Most of them play pretty regularly, some in all competitions. It would not do them any harm to take it in turns to miss a game off the bench, leaving a place open for one of the kids & it would not harm the team so much to risk one place on the bench for a young player. We had two on there at Sunderland for example, one of our toughest away games in recent years & it cost us nothing.

 

[Hungarian blue]

I'm sorry if I was being unclear. What I meant is, that if we intend to include at least some of our young guns in our 23 squad, then, for example, the likes of Milner or Navas who are actually quite big assets for this team, should leave in the long run.

Of course, Pozo is still very young and if we just develop him thanks to some proper loan deals and some additional gametime like on Wednesday, it can do the job. But if we plan to keep him here for the first squad, in 2 or 3 years he should be considered as a first teamer, ie., a player who makes the 23 squad. What makes this thing quite exciting is the fact that are squad is pretty old and as we cannot splash out hundred millions every year because of FFP, I hope that those current 'squad' players (like the abovementioned Navas or Milner, or our backup defenders) will indeed be replaced by some of these youngsters. Lopes and Pozo seem like players that might 'back up' Nasri or Silva one day.

Injuries will eventually come but the inclusion of Pozo or Angelino was pretty much our only option (excluding the fact we have Sinclair still on our squad list...) and it assumes that we have at least 2 injured players for the same position, otherwise they would not make the bench.

 

[Neville Kneville]

I think we could make a gradual changeover from some of the current first teamers to the young players, over the course of a few years. But some of the kids may be squad players who fill a role for a few seasons then get sold on too, maybe eve replaced by kids who are better. But I think the time is soon coming when we need to start using the kids more.

 

[LoveCity]

It's a very tough balance. You hear about United planning to spend another £150m-£200m next summer and wonder how we can strike the right balance without letting them not only catch us, but possibly overtake us. We still need to spend very heavily I think, but at the same time try and present opportunities. And it's so tough, because to get just 1 kid on the bench you have to sacrifice a proven player who could come on and make the difference. It seems to me that United and City are about to swap places, not in terms of success (that remains to be seen), but the club ideology. United are now embracing a "by any means necessary" policy of non-stop spend-spend-spend which brought us to the top level, while City seem to want the new academy to bear fruit while still spending. Real Madrid vs. Barcelona...

 

[without a dream]

It's a very tough balance. You hear about United planning to spend another £150m-£200m next summer and wonder how we can strike the right balance without letting them not only catch us, but possibly overtake us. We still need to spend very heavily I think, but at the same time try and present opportunities. And it's so tough, because to get just 1 kid on the bench you have to sacrifice a proven player who could come on and make the difference. It seems to me that United and City are about to swap places, not in terms of success (that remains to be seen), but the club ideology. United are now embracing a "by any means necessary" policy of non-stop spend-spend-spend which brought us to the top level, while City seem to want the new academy to bear fruit while still spending. Real Madrid vs. Barcelona...

I'd like to see us trim the squad down to 18 or 19 core players with the youngsters stepping up to fill in the minor roles, like we've done at centre half, 3 big players for 2 positions and a homegrown fourth choice. This may also have been part of the reasoning in not replacing Negredo. We should spend big but on far fewer players than we have been doing, only bring in proven top quality players.

 

[CELTICRORY]

Well done tonight kid, so unlucky to not score

 

[Bokonon]

Did about as much Dzeko did. Really hope Iheanacho's arrival doesn't hinder his progress towards the first team. Such a tidy little player