Subject: [U21] Cymru U21 talk

Does anyone have a GK coming through their academy? At the moment going through the squad and picking through the transfer histories for Asistente, we don't have any keepers younger than 21. I've got a 17yo and 18yo keeper coming through this season but only at adequate and good respectively.

Edit: We've got Jay Jay's 18yo actually as a correction but nobody beyond adequate.
(edited)

13 weeks for a gk for me, so 19 next season.

As you say, I have that one young keeper that you’ve now selected.

I’m hoping his talent is good enough to make him decent enough to be useful, as his levels are not that great currently!

He might be busy next season I'll put it that way!

i'll try and keep 2 gks in academy from now on, even if not so good, i rarely hit 30/30 anyway, just havent had a gk for a while now

My plan is pace for the rest of the season and GK after that.

It's a case of trying to balance it with Curtis, who already has 17 GK, so i want to get his pace to 16 before finishing his GK off.

It's looking like i may have to play Curtis as an outfield player so he can get his pace while the youngster has his GK training....

That's modern football for you, they do say that keepers are like an extra outfield player now!

gk is still pretty quick compared to pace, probably not worth losing your better gk - well being in cymru it's only the first few weeks you'll need your main gk so i guess it's fine to play him out. as far as i'm aware there isn't a massive difference between 17 and 18, but always nice to look at an 18. he's 23 too, so even if you never train gk again, he could pop to 18 before 28

I've seen mixed ideas about level 18. Some people saying it's a whole level, others that it's just above 17.... but i never thought about the fact that he could pop without advanced training...

Tbh it's annoying to try and balance training 2 keepers at very different stages of development.

obviously pushing skills to 16 and above is the goal for everyone - but in our position, we basically have 6 weeks of free training - more if you just run all advanced trainees in the cup games, for symonds for example, i believe i got his gk to 17, pushed his pace as far as i could by the time he was 24/25, side popped well enough, then somewhere along the line he did pop to 18gk, hes back to 17gk now of course since he's 30 and stats declining.

but if your gk is less than maybe 14 pace, then yeah should be training that up to at least 14, 15, or as high as you want to try and get it and maybe swap in a gk training now and then to try and get that random pop quicker, up to you.

Got these two.

Ollie Hazlewood 17 good [7] GK 16 weeks
Anthony Payne 18 good [7] GK 17 weeks

Great cheers all - we’ll have a few options to choose from at least, will be a few seasons to train them up but it is what it is.

Ecuador 2-1 Cymru

Disappointing one to lose, we had the best of the first half hour or so and created a fair few chances but couldn’t take them and then hung on for the rest of the first half! Took the lead then on the counter which was well taken but two quick fire goals for them turned the game and we never properly recovered from that, had a chance at the end but their keeper played well. With Box we probably could’ve netted one or two more but it is what it is.

I used the 5-2-3 that was already in the system, it worked well off the start and can’t really complain overall, we got pinned in for a while end of the first half especially but it’s the nature of that sort of tactic if you’re losing the CM battle.

Next few friendlies scheduled in are U20s so there’ll be a fair amount of chopping and changing now - our U20 pool isn’t the strongest to be honest but next season those are our players so getting the chance to have a look at them now will help in the long run at least.

Unlucky - we were in with a chance throughout. Honestly, we just don’t have the quality of players right now, so I think that is about the best you can hope.

I feel like we’ve had some decent youth prospects lately, so perhaps a golden generation is on the way?

Let’s hope so - there’s a few decent players coming through and even then just having 5 academies producing players means that by the law of averages we should produce players that some people might train as well. The more we have coming through the better!

Done a bit of re-jigging and uploaded a fair few players onto Asistente at long last - taken me a while to have the time to sit and do it but they're finally on there. The next few games are U20 for us so it'll be a big turnover of players in the next few games. Defensively we're very well set for next season, and to be honest even going forward the options aren't the worst. Our midfield is going to take a big drop off in quality but that's the nature of U21 football with a small player pool.

Tomorrow we play Denmark, who are a higher ranked side also overhauling their player pool. Hoping for a good performance primarily, it'll be a good indication of where we sit against a team who will be probably in Pot 3 for the qualifiers next season.