We were told before Smith came here that he plays the youth and if they have a bad game he persists with them, I have seen zero evidence of this, in fact players who have a good game seem to get dropped. I'd much rather see Vassilev in the squad other than El Ghazi and Trez. Also you already know the main reasons I want him out.
Also we have a relevant youth development department, it just never gets utilised.
Nah not having that matey, he did use youth, once they'd been bedded into his system from their B squad for at least 12 months and as we know, the good Tweeter was closing our Academy, we lost players (my own personal gripe about Jack Clarke aside) we had no options.
He has used the new promising options when needed, yes because he had to, the likes of Doyle-Hayes, O'Hare et al needed better competitive action - especially if we want them to step up to the PL.
Most of our established first team haven't been with the club for 12 months, neither have our U23 squad/U18 squad. You don't 'persist' with a youngster in the Prem, it kills their confidence, you introduce them slowly with a backing.
We have no backing, we barely have a first team.
You might rather see Vass than others, because he's ran around a bit - Trez/El Ghazi have goals and assists between them. But I guarantee if he played every week Vass would be the new Davies - lump doesn't score, headless chicken - the kids career is over before it began.
We've been here before.
Name one Brentford youngster Smith threw in straight away and I'll tell you, you can't mate. Their B team and youth are drilled as per first team style - when NSWE took over we barely had a youth set up left, that's why there's been a good change over in players, that's why our new Academy head is barely 2 years into the job.
Smith has nowt behind him yet, Fox wasn't interested in the Academy, Xia certainly wasn't - we were years behind when NSWE arrived - don't criticise him for not throwing sheep to the wolves.
Might be time for bed, that was a longer post than I imagined lol