Quote Originally Posted by AstonAlex View Post
Glad it wasn’t just me that thought 3-0 was a tad flattering to them. They definitely deserved to go in ahead, but 2-0? Hardly.

Second half was much more even and we dominated possession without ever creating anything clear cut. We looked better when Callum came on and Tom Lowery was at his most dynamic. Defence looked shaky at times, but we were playing a decent side (won’t see many better this season I reckon) with only one recognised CH - I suspect Sass wasn’t played with Nolan due to a slight lack of pace with both parties,- added to which neither Perry or Pixie had their best games defensively, but were fine in the second half when we were on the front foot.

Regarding the Academy point, 7 starters and the entire outfield bench were ‘our’ players (I include Wintle in this). The purpose of the Academy is twofold, to provide us with first team players (tick) and then to sell them for decent money. Anyone watching today or the second half of last season would have Lowery, Ainley, Perry, Pixie and Wintle in their notebooks, and maybe even Kirky.
And that’s my point sold for decent money, can you see any of the above attracting somewhere in the region of £750000 a big fat NO and why is this ? When Jones was playing at his best Preston put in an offer of £300000 this sort of money is nowhere near the kind of transfer fee we need (yes need) to cover our academy costs. As I have said in many posts the success of the academy players is linked to the success of the 1st team if the 1st team is successful and some of the academy players are part of it, it drives up the attention from other clubs and the academy players value, it is no coincidence that the first team have been by in large poor over the last 5 seasons and therefore zero transfers. Why is the 1st team poor because the club cannot afford to put money in at both ends FACT. Somebody said to me in a post you don’t want Crewe doing a Bury do you , well this is just a different way of doing it but it is a slow death.