Fulham U21 EFL Match Today

[Deeping_white]

There's an enormous gulf between adult football and youth football, and we've taken a huge gamble signing three young, inexperienced youth players to play in the Premier League.

What are you going on about? All of them have played for the RM first team and in the Champions League so they're hardly comparable to some of our 18/19 year old academy players

[Birmingham White]

Michael Allen in goal was sensational last night before going off with an injured shoulder. It could have been 8-0 in the first half. They were bigger, quicker, more physical and pressed a lot better. I thought Daniels was very quiet on the touchline when the team really needed his support and encouragement.

Our pressing from the front was really poor and lacked co-ordination. JKA was totally ineffective and is nowhere near first team level with that performance. Zepa looked decent going forward but didn't work hard enough for me & our right back Benchaita had a couple of 2 on 1's to deal with in the first half due to Zepa's lack of support.

They hit the crossbar and post numerous times so it could have been a cricket score and we created nothing.
Based on that performance there is nobody close to the first team atm but at least it showed the boys the level they need to get to just to play pro football.

[C Block]

Michael Allen in goal was sensational last night before going off with an injured shoulder. It could have been 8-0 in the first half. They were bigger, quicker, more physical and pressed a lot better. I thought Daniels was very quiet on the touchline when the team really needed his support and encouragement.

Our pressing from the front was really poor and lacked co-ordination. JKA was totally ineffective and is nowhere near first team level with that performance. Zepa looked decent going forward but didn't work hard enough for me & our right back Benchaita had a couple of 2 on 1's to deal with in the first half due to Zepa's lack of support.

They hit the crossbar and post numerous times so it could have been a cricket score and we created nothing.
Based on that performance there is nobody close to the first team atm but at least it showed the boys the level they need to get to just to play pro football.

For a balance of fairness, we've got a lot of U21 players currently away on loan and we've also got a few away on international duty, so it wasn't our strongest U21 side,
And we were up against an opponent whose manager is under enormous pressure (Russell Martin) , so this morning now, im sure there are Leicester City supporters thinking they have turned a corner because they put 6 past us, when in effect they haven't.

[Jim©]

Luton 6-Ipswich 0
Crewe 4- Villa 1
Plymouth 5 - Palace 1

It serves no real purpose other than showing what mens' football is like for kids and giving a shot in arm to lower league players who need a confidence boost.

Hopefully they learnt something last night, there were quite a few poor performances (and players missing!)

[Stoneleigh Loyalist]

Michael Allen in goal was sensational last night before going off with an injured shoulder. It could have been 8-0 in the first half. They were bigger, quicker, more physical and pressed a lot better. I thought Daniels was very quiet on the touchline when the team really needed his support and encouragement.

Our pressing from the front was really poor and lacked co-ordination. JKA was totally ineffective and is nowhere near first team level with that performance. Zepa looked decent going forward but didn't work hard enough for me & our right back Benchaita had a couple of 2 on 1's
to deal with in the first half due to Zepa's lack of support.

They hit the crossbar and post numerous times so it could have been a cricket score and we created nothing.
Based on that performance there is nobody close to the first team atm but at least it showed the boys the level they need to get to just to play pro football.

Decodova-Reid scored with a quality volley but that showed the experience of he team they were up against.

[jayffc]

By far and away the worst I've seen our U21s play in a long time

However - it was against a recently relegated now league 1 team in Liecester. And it's an u21 team now without

Josh King
Ridgeon
Ali Wahid
Sam Amissah
Lapulo-Bi
Luc DF
McNally

Hard pressed to massively critique our forward line cos they were feeding on absolute scraps in all honesty with out midfield so disconnected and deep from them.... Although thought Zepa was pretty wasteful and sloppy when he finally did get a touch, and the usually decent Casey and Quasie were bullied really. JKA was completely isolated and our midfield and back 4 were entirely dominated start to finish resulting in the game looking like an attack v defense training session. Literally boys against men with defense being carved through relentlessly

No suprise really with Leicester playing 5 players who started their last league game so plenty of their first team present. But our back 4 were an absolute mess. Don't really agree that the GK was having a blinder either, he made a couple good saves for sure but they were already like 3 or 4 down before he went off.

Ultimately you still can't really sayfor certain if some of the players in isolation would or wouldn't be able to play mens football on that viewing. For example switching over and seeing someone like ALB playing for Fleetwood he had much more opportunity because he was 1 young guy playing surrounded by grown men, so his team weren't just getting bullied off the pitch and he was able to get a little more time on ball with support (didnt score but put a good shift in)... put JKA in that situation and I suspect it'd look different for him too. Really JKA is wasting his time being in the youth team though - he should be on loan for his development.

So yeh, whilst no one stated a claim in this match to be in the first team, difficult to be sure that none of them could offer something if surrounded by better full grown teammates

[Bronaldinho]

Michael Allen in goal was sensational last night before going off with an injured shoulder. It could have been 8-0 in the first half. They were bigger, quicker, more physical and pressed a lot better. I thought Daniels was very quiet on the touchline when the team really needed his support and encouragement.

Our pressing from the front was really poor and lacked co-ordination. JKA was totally ineffective and is nowhere near first team level with that performance. Zepa looked decent going forward but didn't work hard enough for me & our right back Benchaita had a couple of 2 on 1's to deal with in the first half due to Zepa's lack of support.

They hit the crossbar and post numerous times so it could have been a cricket score and we created nothing.
Based on that performance there is nobody close to the first team atm but at least it showed the boys the level they need to get to just to play pro football.

Bit harsh on Zepa and JKA when the team got dominated - if they don't get much services or chances they are hardly going to look good.

JKA has proved he's too good for U21 football, last season he had 4 in 5 apps, and this season he's scored 1 in 2.

6'5, was featuring for Bayern in pre-season before his spell with us, technically good and has a lot to offer.

He needs a loan spell. Zepa looked good for us in pre-season when he got the chance too.

[TheOnionBag]

Michael Allen in goal was sensational last night before going off with an injured shoulder. It could have been 8-0 in the first half. They were bigger, quicker, more physical and pressed a lot better. I thought Daniels was very quiet on the touchline when the team really needed his support and encouragement.

Our pressing from the front was really poor and lacked co-ordination. JKA was totally ineffective and is nowhere near first team level with that performance. Zepa looked decent going forward but didn't work hard enough for me & our right back Benchaita had a couple of 2 on 1's to deal with in the first half due to Zepa's lack of support.

They hit the crossbar and post numerous times so it could have been a cricket score and we created nothing.
Based on that performance there is nobody close to the first team atm but at least it showed the boys the level they need to get to just to play pro football.

Bit harsh on Zepa and JKA when the team got dominated - if they don't get much services or chances they are hardly going to look good.

JKA has proved he's too good for U21 football, last season he had 4 in 5 apps, and this season he's scored 1 in 2.

6'5, was featuring for Bayern in pre-season before his spell with us, technically good and has a lot to offer.

He needs a loan spell. Zepa looked good for us in pre-season when he got the chance too.

In the main I think the summary by Birmingham White is pretty accurate and is along the same lines as how I saw the game, yesterday there were an awful lot of times when the pass or lay off was just out of reach of it's intended target putting us under pressure, Zepa was one of those who was a little slack in his passing  but by no means the only one but perhaps I and others picked up on this due to the drop in his normal standards, I also thing he could/should offer a bit more support to the fullback, JKA was disappointing in as much as he found himself getting pinned by the defenders this may be as a result if the poor balls up to him, but I thought he would have found a way around this.
Overall it was a disappointing performance, though having watched a fair bit of the 21's we do create a lot of chances but do give up a lot of chances last night was an extreme example of this, it was a night were our regular creative players couldn't get a foot hols and we found ourselves on the back foot constantly.