What's the point of the reserves?

[Bruce Wayne]

Many leading managers have critisised the reserve competition in England as not really serving any purpose and looking at the appearance stats for our young players you can see why.

Only one player (Irving) has played 10 games at reserve level this season. 10 games in a whole season, at a time when the senior side have played three times that.

These kids are at a time when technically they should be mature and they need to learn the tactical side of the game and build up match experience. 10 games is a joke, especially when you consider the reduced tempo in most reserve games. It's not surprising so many managers loan out as many young players as possible.

 

[Cal]

Basically i reckon it is to build up their matchday expierence.

You can learn alot on the training ground but you have to put that into matches.

They can also play against some decent array of talent and first teamers who are coming back to fitness or people like van der meyde, the drunks who cant get a first team game.

 

[Jamo Martinez]

Spanish reserves

It could be an idea to copy the Spanish idea and actually have the reserve side competing in the league. Most top flight Spanish sides have a 'B' team in their equivalent of league one and two at the moment. Obviously, rules prevent them from playing in the same division. If a first team is relegated to a division where they have a reserve team playing, said reserve team is automatically relegated. The same goes for promotion places. If, for example, Barcelona 'B' finished 3rd in the 'championship', the 4th placed team would get the promotion spot in their place. I'm sure it must give the young players a more competitive grounding than they get in the reserve set up in England.

 

[TheDevils2001]

I don't think the lower division side would like this idea, especially when 5~6 B-side are in promotion position to Premier League and lower side goes up but with less talent player it would really be pointless as they would come up and goes down next season for sure.

 

[monty]

It used to be that the reserves took part in the old Central league that was very competitive, all home matches played at Goodison and at times they could attract up to 10,000 specs. With the increase in technology reserve games are played away from GP, the matches themselves are disjointed as most other big clubs do the same thing which makes a mockery of the entire set up. I would love to see a return to a more meaningful system.

The whole idea of playing away from GP is claimed to protect the pitch, it is no better today than it was 40 years ago. If games got played at Goodison then I'm sure it would help our fan based in Liverpool even further, playing such games in Widnes or Southport isn't really on imo, they are too far away. We could give Kirby Stadium a go (whistles and leaves)

 

[SuitsBlue]

they could setup regional leagues, not necessarily consisting of only prem sides. there are plenty of teams, chop the leagues up into four, let the winners play each other at season end.

 

[monty]

they could setup regional leagues, not necessarily consisting of only prem sides. there are plenty of teams, chop the leagues up into four, let the winners play each other at season end.

Suits, the old Central league consisted of just that, reserve sides from across the region irrespective of division. If I remember correctly it also had promotion and relegation to a lower league