Young side

Much has been made over recent years when the Alex have fielded ‘all Academy’ 11s or when we have put out teams with 5 or 6 youngsters. Yet for our 3 league matches this season 9 of the starting 11 had their first professional contracts with us (I’m including Will and Ryan in this), albeit one being the senior citizen Murphy! It’s also the case that the other players are both relative youngsters compared with the Hunts and Greens of the past 2 seasons - Beckles is 28 and Mandron only 25.

The average age of the first team has, as a result, been 23. The bench for the last match also had 5 players aged between 20 and 23.

I think that this is not only a credit to these young players and the Academy coaches, but also to Dave and Kenny. It takes some courage and faith to stick with these youngsters in your first job as a manager and that faith has been amply rewarded. Yes, it means that we will lose some players far too early for us to enjoy them to the full but, whilst I miss Gorgeous George Cooper and his overhit crosses and poor decisions interspersed with great assists and wonderful moments, if he hadn’t left then Kirky and Dale wouldn’t have had their chance to do the same! And, at present, it’s working well, with a few more in the pipeline.

"the few in the pipeline" are important!. We are likely, at some stage in the relatively near future, to lose up to a half of our current starting 11.
We've seen a bit of Lundstram shaping up well. The two full backs had a mini-outing last season. Of the recruits, we've had not much from Zanzala and a 10 minute cameo with Daniels. Is the former one who is going to develop or is he a mistake? I don't know what's happened to the latter - is he injured? -no updates but McGarry made a comment about him not being named in the squad for the last couple of games. Does this mean he's available but not in favour or is McGarry still on another planet? (incidentally - when will he realise that the club name is alexanDRA not alexandER!:?).

So anyway, the question is, do we have enough players in the squad/coming through who will replace the obvious potential leavers in the next year or so?

I guess we’ll only know the answer to that last question when we see them!

As regards the summer recruitment, I think we can all agree that Murphy (yes, my scepticism was misplaced), Beckles and, especially, Mandron have been good acquisitions. I wouldn’t write Daniels off yet so that leaves Zanzala. To be honest, 3 successes out of 5, with 2 possibles, looks like good business to me.... and it has gingered up those in competition with them.

Well Daniels had been out since straining hamstring early on in the Wigan game, played u-23 the other day and back on the bench last night, so absolutely no reason to doubt his signing yet. Zanzala I find a puzzle: was he perhaps signed as *the* back up to Chris Porter, then they found they could get Mandron too, when perhaps they hadn't expected to, so he's pushed down the pecking order? My understanding was he left Accrington because they couldn't guarantee starts!

I wonder if Zanzala was signed as cover for the possible transfer of Charlie. In which case it was bad luck for him and better news for us!

Zanzala had been used as a winger at times when he was at Accrington. I do wonder why he isn't used as a sub in that way. Anyway with games continuing to come thick and fast, surely he'll be used soon.
As for Daniels, I wasn't writing him off, just I hadn't heard what was happening with him. That same day he appeared on the bench. It's good he's there as Beckles distribution is still a bit shaky.

Daniel's will become first choice as soon as hes properly fit