"WE NEED A CHANGE OF POLICY By Carl Curtis" South Wales Echo

" WE NEED A CHANGE OF POLICY By Carl Curtis " Echo Columnist


Any Comments/Opinions ?


http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballna ... -28238727/

Nice one Carl can see you on Football Focus next

a good read and a hint of realism

I have Said and always Maintained one of Dave Jones biggest Down Falls is he does not believe in Reserve Teams .

I have Said and always Maintained one of Dave Jones biggest Down Falls is he does not believe in Reserve Teams .

do you know if this was the case with teams he has previously managed?

I have Said and always Maintained one of Dave Jones biggest Down Falls is he does not believe in Reserve Teams .

do you know if this was the case with teams he has previously managed?

Do you know, I actually dont.
But I know he is 100% against them now and its nothing to do with costs. He believes in just concentrating on the 1st Team, Even the Accademy means nothing to him.
You need a Reserve team to bring players back after injuries, you need Reserve teams to keep players fit.

well annis,he'll have to sort something out if we go up!premiership team with no reserve team.....laughing stock comes to mind.i'm a big dave jones fan but somebody will need to change his way of thinking

" WE NEED A CHANGE OF POLICY By Carl Curtis " Echo Columnist


Any Comments/Opinions ?


http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballna ... -28238727/

Both Hull & Stoke have reached the PL in the last 6 years by making the most of the loan system and both teams stayed in the PL the following season. IMO there is nothing wrong with using the loan system to benefit the club afterall we should remember that in June last year the club had just been saved from extinction with the Malaysians repaying one debt after another.

In the future if it meant that the club used the loan system instead of paying transfer fees and started repaying debts i.e. Langston I would prefer that.

Don't misunderstand me I understand exactly where Carl is coming from but behind it principal is that you buy cheap, develop the player and sell on at a big profit. All well and good as long as you use the profits to pay off debt i.e. Langston and not use it to fund expensive loan signings.

Football clubs have always used the trading of players to pay their way but things are different at the moment, the PL introducing the 25 man squad has resulted in lots of PL squad players being made available as loanees to Championship clubs. When this settles down we may well see PL clubs offloading unwanted squad players at knockdown prices and I do think the club should be willing to pay for the right player in those circumstances.

I just think that there is nothing wrong with using the loan system to the benefit of the club and IMO it has benefited the club this season, afterall how else would we ever see Craig Bellamy and Aaron Ramsey in the Bluebirds shirt.

well annis,he'll have to sort something out if we go up!premiership team with no reserve team.....laughing stock comes to mind.i'm a big dave jones fan but somebody will need to change his way of thinking

All Premiership Clubs have them, but I am hearing DJ would continue his policy.

well annis,he'll have to sort something out if we go up!premiership team with no reserve team.....laughing stock comes to mind.i'm a big dave jones fan but somebody will need to change his way of thinking

All Premiership Clubs have them, but I am hearing DJ would continue his policy.

surely that cant be the case,just say we have 25 players and maybe 14 or 15 playing some part week in week out.10 players will be developing cobwebs

well annis,he'll have to sort something out if we go up!premiership team with no reserve team.....laughing stock comes to mind.i'm a big dave jones fan but somebody will need to change his way of thinking

All Premiership Clubs have them, but I am hearing DJ would continue his policy.

Iv,e allways thought one of our biggest problems under Dave Jones was a lack of reserve team football, its not rocket science to know you have to have match time fitness to step back into the first team. Why is DJ so agaist reserve team football, dont get it myself

well annis,he'll have to sort something out if we go up!premiership team with no reserve team.....laughing stock comes to mind.i'm a big dave jones fan but somebody will need to change his way of thinking

All Premiership Clubs have them, but I am hearing DJ would continue his policy.

surely that cant be the case,just say we have 25 players and maybe 14 or 15 playing some part week in week out.10 players will be developing cobwebs

They Develop them now, thats why we have so many tired and unfit players to call on.

well annis,he'll have to sort something out if we go up!premiership team with no reserve team.....laughing stock comes to mind.i'm a big dave jones fan but somebody will need to change his way of thinking

All Premiership Clubs have them, but I am hearing DJ would continue his policy.

You would think that is the case Annis but this season in the PL Reserve Divsion South Birmingham, Stoke, Fulham and believe it or not Tottenham do not compete in the reserve division. All other PL teams do have reserve teams though including Blackpool.

I believe in Tottenham case HR decided not to enter the reserve division because of the additional CL games the club was involved with. He has decided to rotate his squad as nuch as possible to keep players match fit.

well annis,he'll have to sort something out if we go up!premiership team with no reserve team.....laughing stock comes to mind.i'm a big dave jones fan but somebody will need to change his way of thinking

All Premiership Clubs have them, but I am hearing DJ would continue his policy.

You would think that is the case Annis but this season in the PL Reserve Divsion South Birmingham, Stoke, Fulham and believe it or not Tottenham do not compete in the reserve division. All other PL teams do have reserve teams though including Blackpool.

I believe in Tottenham case HR decided not to enter the reserve division because of the additional CL games the club was involved with. He has decided to rotate his squad as nuch as possible to keep players match fit.

Now that does Surprise me.
Are you sure ? I really thought every Premier Club had one, I know 95% of league Clubs have one.

well annis,he'll have to sort something out if we go up!premiership team with no reserve team.....laughing stock comes to mind.i'm a big dave jones fan but somebody will need to change his way of thinking

All Premiership Clubs have them, but I am hearing DJ would continue his policy.

You would think that is the case Annis but this season in the PL Reserve Divsion South Birmingham, Stoke, Fulham and believe it or not Tottenham do not compete in the reserve division. All other PL teams do have reserve teams though including Blackpool.

I believe in Tottenham case HR decided not to enter the reserve division because of the additional CL games the club was involved with. He has decided to rotate his squad as nuch as possible to keep players match fit.

Now that does Surprise me.
Are you sure ? I really thought every Premier Club had one, I know 95% of league Clubs have one.[/quote]

Annis trust me with this one

But as it's you and I like you here is a link to the Arsenal reserve team league table you will see all the clubs I mentioned are missing from the League;

http://www.arsenal.com/reserves-youth/reserves-table

It may go some way to explain why AW wanted to send Aaron Ramsey and Jay Emmanuel Thomas out on loan as Arsenal simply do not have enough reserve team football.

if we got to the premiership there should be no excuses at all whether to have a reserve team or not. if DJ would take five minuites to think of the recent youngsters we have brough through the system in the past 6 years or so...it shows that we do have a lot of talent within the club and they must be brought through the system and into the first team(when ready of course). you cant run a club without a reserve tea, im sorry its madness. DJ needs to change this by next season otherwise we are going to be a laughing stock.
i for one love to see a youngester come on during a game, such as wildig last season. now that gets the crowd jumping. dont worry about switching stands...or moving blocks.....PLAY THE YOUNGESTERS!!!!

if we got to the premiership there should be no excuses at all whether to have a reserve team or not. if DJ would take five minuites to think of the recent youngsters we have brough through the system in the past 6 years or so...it shows that we do have a lot of talent within the club and they must be brought through the system and into the first team(when ready of course). you cant run a club without a reserve tea, im sorry its madness. DJ needs to change this by next season otherwise we are going to be a laughing stock.
i for one love to see a youngester come on during a game, such as wildig last season. now that gets the crowd jumping. dont worry about switching stands...or moving blocks.....PLAY THE YOUNGESTERS!!!!

Agree with you there mate. When Wildig came on and set up the winner for Chopra against Swansea

Castleblue
But as it's you and I like you here is a link to the Arsenal reserve team league table you will see all the clubs I mentioned are missing from the League;

http://www.arsenal.com/reserves-youth/reserves-table

It may go some way to explain why AW wanted to send Aaron Ramsey and Jay Emmanuel Thomas out on loan as Arsenal simply do not have enough reserve team football. [/quote]


I actually did Believe you, Just very Surprised and Shocked

if we got to the premiership there should be no excuses at all whether to have a reserve team or not. if DJ would take five minuites to think of the recent youngsters we have brough through the system in the past 6 years or so...it shows that we do have a lot of talent within the club and they must be brought through the system and into the first team(when ready of course). you cant run a club without a reserve tea, im sorry its madness. DJ needs to change this by next season otherwise we are going to be a laughing stock.
i for one love to see a youngester come on during a game, such as wildig last season. now that gets the crowd jumping. dont worry about switching stands...or moving blocks.....PLAY THE YOUNGESTERS!!!!

Agree with you there mate. When Wildig came on and set up the winner for Chopra against Swansea

exactly, coud we ask for more there? wildig stepped up to the plate. hope he comes back from his loan and impresses DJ. feel sorry for the reserves who are trying hard to get into the team but now seems like theres no hope for them. josh mgennis(sorry cant spell)he wasnt the greatest of players by any means, he got his run outs during games, he had full support off the fans and he gave it his hardest, we couldnt ask for more and thats why i love seeing the youngsters come on. it

if we got to the premiership there should be no excuses at all whether to have a reserve team or not. if DJ would take five minuites to think of the recent youngsters we have brough through the system in the past 6 years or so...it shows that we do have a lot of talent within the club and they must be brought through the system and into the first team(when ready of course). you cant run a club without a reserve tea, im sorry its madness. DJ needs to change this by next season otherwise we are going to be a laughing stock.
i for one love to see a youngester come on during a game, such as wildig last season. now that gets the crowd jumping. dont worry about switching stands...or moving blocks.....PLAY THE YOUNGESTERS!!!!

I have to disagree about not being able to run a club without a reserve team just look at Stoke City as an example of that;

http://www.stokecityfc.com/page/Appeara ... 10,00.html

Stoke have a squad of 25 players registered with the PL but only 13 of those players have started more than 10 PL matches, only a further 5 players have more than 7 sub appearances in the PL so Pulis has a squad of effectively 18 players doing rather well in the PL.

For most people Stoke City are now considered an established PL team and yet every season Tony Pulis has run without a reserve team, so I would put them up as a good example of a club who are run properly, successfully even without an organised reserve team.

Perhaps some good question would be - How can Tony Pulis compete week in week out with basically 18 players in the PL? and more importantly for me - How does he keep the fringe players of his squad ready to step into the first team without regular reserve team football?

You never here Tony Pulis talking about needing 5 new players during a transfer window do you

Castleblue
But as it's you and I like you here is a link to the Arsenal reserve team league table you will see all the clubs I mentioned are missing from the League;

http://www.arsenal.com/reserves-youth/reserves-table

It may go some way to explain why AW wanted to send Aaron Ramsey and Jay Emmanuel Thomas out on loan as Arsenal simply do not have enough reserve team football.

I actually did Believe you, Just very Surprised and Shocked [/quote]

I know just joking but the point I was trying to make is that you can run without a reserve team and be successful, Tony Pulis does it brilliantly at Stoke.

Maybe the question should be why can't DJ do the same here?

just a few thoughts...can we afford extra players for a reserve team? we already have a huge debt and are still losing money hand over fist..where would they play?...the stadium can't have another team playing there...would people pay to watch them?....i doubt i would....

if we got to the premiership there should be no excuses at all whether to have a reserve team or not. if DJ would take five minuites to think of the recent youngsters we have brough through the system in the past 6 years or so...it shows that we do have a lot of talent within the club and they must be brought through the system and into the first team(when ready of course). you cant run a club without a reserve tea, im sorry its madness. DJ needs to change this by next season otherwise we are going to be a laughing stock.
i for one love to see a youngester come on during a game, such as wildig last season. now that gets the crowd jumping. dont worry about switching stands...or moving blocks.....PLAY THE YOUNGESTERS!!!!

I have to disagree about not being able to run a club without a reserve team just look at Stoke City as an example of that;

http://www.stokecityfc.com/page/Appeara ... 10,00.html

Stoke have a squad of 25 players registered with the PL but only 13 of those players have started more than 10 PL matches, only a further 5 players have more than 7 sub appearances in the PL so Pulis has a squad of effectively 18 players doing rather well in the PL.

For most people Stoke City are now considered an established PL team and yet every season Tony Pulis has run without a reserve team, so I would put them up as a good example of a club who are run properly, successfully even without an organised reserve team.

Perhaps some good question would be - How can Tony Pulis compete week in week out with basically 18 players in the PL? and more importantly for me - How does he keep the fringe players of his squad ready to step into the first team without regular reserve team football?

You never here Tony Pulis talking about needing 5 new players during a transfer window do you

I usually agree with all your posts, but regarding a Reserve team, I Def cant, I really believe we should have one and 99%% of Succesful Clubs do have one.

if we got to the premiership there should be no excuses at all whether to have a reserve team or not. if DJ would take five minuites to think of the recent youngsters we have brough through the system in the past 6 years or so...it shows that we do have a lot of talent within the club and they must be brought through the system and into the first team(when ready of course). you cant run a club without a reserve tea, im sorry its madness. DJ needs to change this by next season otherwise we are going to be a laughing stock.
i for one love to see a youngester come on during a game, such as wildig last season. now that gets the crowd jumping. dont worry about switching stands...or moving blocks.....PLAY THE YOUNGESTERS!!!!

I have to disagree about not being able to run a club without a reserve team just look at Stoke City as an example of that;

http://www.stokecityfc.com/page/Appeara ... 10,00.html

Stoke have a squad of 25 players registered with the PL but only 13 of those players have started more than 10 PL matches, only a further 5 players have more than 7 sub appearances in the PL so Pulis has a squad of effectively 18 players doing rather well in the PL.

For most people Stoke City are now considered an established PL team and yet every season Tony Pulis has run without a reserve team, so I would put them up as a good example of a club who are run properly, successfully even without an organised reserve team.

Perhaps some good question would be - How can Tony Pulis compete week in week out with basically 18 players in the PL? and more importantly for me - How does he keep the fringe players of his squad ready to step into the first team without regular reserve team football?

You never here Tony Pulis talking about needing 5 new players during a transfer window do you

no your right there mate, i agree. i dont think it is right to have a club such as stoke that have no reserve team but they are an established premier league team. instead of DJ moaning about 5 new players it would have been nice to turn to a reserve player, give him the chance to shine and do his best but its obviously not going to happen. you obviously can run a club without a reserve team lol but all i was getting at is that if we did get premiership...i think its very wrong of the club to not have a reserve team and not put in the money and effort to get it all running.

From what I remember Jones abandoned the reserve team because the standard of the league they played in was very poor and some of the teams (I remember Weymouth) would cancel at the last moment because they couldn't rise a team.

That said those problems shouldn’t be a barrier to reserve team football as just about any game is better than no game at all. IMO it makes no sense to have highly paid professional footballers go months without kicking a ball on the field of play because they are on the fringes of the first team.

It has to affect their match fitness plus skills such as touch, passing, tackling and shooting which will wane through lack of match practise and show up in important games should they be called upon due to injury or suspension to a first team player.

I don't have too much of a problem with the loan system and maximising it to our benefit. I don't think it's an either/or between loaning a player and promoting one from the Academy/Reserve team, it's a case of what's best for the team in the short term.

I say short term because we know that player turnover at most clubs (certainly in the Championship) is extremely high and the moment a player shows any kind of promise he is either off via a transfer or winding his contracts down.

Squad planning has to be season to season because of the huge financial difference between each league so in that case it makes sense to bring in loan players to get the promotion job done and send them back to their parent clubs. During the summer a rebuilding programme can begin without the club being tied down by millions being wasted on expensive contracts for players that can’t cut it in the Premiership or on players who have already failed to get you promoted.

Loans might not be ideal but they are the best choice out of a load of bad options.

i just think that we cant try and be like stoke as u mentioned, we cant get to the premiership and completely wipe out the reserve team. the reserve team is going to help is in the future of course and possibly make us money. getting rid of mathews like we have is awful and i think we needed to give him a chance to play, we have lost a very talented player. what if we have another youngster that turns out to be like ramsey? its a big shout but you never know what we could produce through the academy.

For the record, we've played Llanelli, Bristol Rovers, Exeter and Newport in reserve matches this season.

just a few thoughts...can we afford extra players for a reserve team? we already have a huge debt and are still losing money hand over fist..where would they play?...the stadium can't have another team playing there...would people pay to watch them?....i doubt i would....

With all the players that never play and the Subs,plus Accademy players what would be wrong with say 10 home and 10 away Reserve games a Season.

For the record, we've played Llanelli, Bristol Rovers, Exeter and Newport in reserve matches this season.

That Shows DJ, Needs to make his mind up.
But its its not the same as being in a small league trying to Win it and getting fitter, as your trying more.

I have to disagree about not being able to run a club without a reserve team just look at Stoke City as an example of that;

http://www.stokecityfc.com/page/Appeara ... 10,00.html

Stoke have a squad of 25 players registered with the PL but only 13 of those players have started more than 10 PL matches, only a further 5 players have more than 7 sub appearances in the PL so Pulis has a squad of effectively 18 players doing rather well in the PL.

For most people Stoke City are now considered an established PL team and yet every season Tony Pulis has run without a reserve team, so I would put them up as a good example of a club who are run properly, successfully even without an organised reserve team.

Perhaps some good question would be - How can Tony Pulis compete week in week out with basically 18 players in the PL? and more importantly for me - How does he keep the fringe players of his squad ready to step into the first team without regular reserve team football?

You never here Tony Pulis talking about needing 5 new players during a transfer window do you

I usually agree with all your posts, but regarding a Reserve team, I Def cant, I really believe we should have one and 99%% of Succesful Clubs do have one.

I would much prefer that we had an organised reserve team no doubt about that but for whatever reason, and it appears to be DJ, we don't. Having said that the 8 PL teams in the Southern section of the reserve league arrange fixtures against teams in the Northern section reserve league.

Surely there has been an opportunity for our club to arrange games against these PL reserve teams, even if they are at the training ground, Warnock does it at QPR and maybe that explains why he can drop both established CB and still not see standards drop.

I think the point I am trying to make, probably badly, is that some managers can succeed without a reserve team because they appear to have found a way to keep all their squad players match fit, Pulis is the best example I can think of.

In our case it appears to me that DJ only ever appears to see one group of players, if your not in the team you don't exist, and the best example of that point today is Adam Matthews. The lad has gone from hero to zero in DJ eyes and the way our manager has dealt with him, the public criticism being the worst example, has seen us lose out on a major prospect and big potential transfer fee.

Ross McCormack is another example where public criticism was becoming the norm and a player who the club turned down £3m for was sold for £300k and is a shadow of the player he was a few years ago.

The worst example of poor transfer policy was of course turning down £6m for Joe Ledley because at a time when the club could not afford to turn the bid back we did, this fee may have seen us stave off the various winding up orders and other debts which the Malaysians have had to deal with this season.

When Carl writes about a need for a change of policy he is of course right but that change must be more far reaching than just buying players, it must include accepting when is the right time to sell, when is the best time to buy or loan a player and how do we keep our squad players match fit without a reserve team.

The answers are simple arrange regular reserve games, even if they are at the training ground, put someone in place who will decide when the club accept an offer for a player and that person is not the team manager and have someone who is looking more than 1 year ahead in the planning of the club.

Let's face it our manager has a life expectancy of no more than 1 year in his job and I think this results in a policy of a more shorterm rather than medium or longterm.

Any change of policy needs to include a Director Of Football who has responsibility for the short, medium and longterm planning of the club and somewhere in there I 100% agree must be a reserve team.

An alternative to a reserve team would be a manager with a proven track record of running a club without one. For the record DJ did have a reserve team in his last job and in his last full season they finished bottom but 1 in the league, the following season they were 2nd bottom again at the time he was sacked but eventually finished 6th after Glen Hoddle took over the club. Seems he wasn't very good at running a reserve team when he had one