The Academy/Development squads watch thread 2024/25

[Royal Ginger]

Didn't he spend most of last season out with a knee injury? That's probably had something to do with it. Whilst i'd like to think he'll improve and get back towards the bench by the end of the season, I think he's going to need Murray to leave in January, Hammond not to sign any more strikers, Tanner and Pogrebnyak to remain injured and for no-one to outsine him in the U21s for him to get a look in. I fear he's heading the way of Ugwu and D'Ath, the next big thing for a few years then lower league mediocrity.

[Royals and Racers]

Anyone going on Friday ? free entry

[SCIAG]

Looking forward to it. There's no U18 match this weekend so we could see the likes of Husin involved, but I think we'll see the oldest possible side selected. Something like:

------------------Lincoln----------------
-Long---Keown--Sweeney--Griffin
--------------Kuhl---Kelly---------------
Stacey----------Tanner----------Fosu
----------------Samuel------------------
Subs: Ward, Dickie, Shaughnessy, Edwards, Cardwell

I think Sammi is the only U21 injury right now. I imagine Tshibola will be with the first team. Can see Edwards starting ahead of Tanner as a precaution but I really hope Tanner plays.

[The Cube]

Next round of the Under-21 Premier League Cup is away to Bolton or Wigan. Those sides are due to play their game this Friday.

[P!ssed Off]

Reading U21s: Lincoln, Long, Griffin, Shaughnessy, Keown, Sweeney, Owusu, Kelly, Samuel, Tanner, Fosu.
Subs: Ward, McLennan, Hyam, Dickie, Fridjonsson.

Edwards, Tshibola, Stacey and Kuhl have presumably gone to Birmingham. Doubt all 4 will be in the squad though.

[ZacNaloen]

Anyone else going tonight?

[ZacNaloen]

Reading dominating but wolves are well drilled so final ball is difficult to find.

0-0 at half time

[P!ssed Off]

Not a great 1st half.

[ZacNaloen]

3-1 much better second half.

[Pepe the Horseman]

Cheers guys, really felt like I was there.

[P!ssed Off]

1st half was pretty poor, dawdling on the ball, too many touches, lack of movement. We had a few decent long range efforts but that was about it.

2nd half was a lot better; quicker passing, more movement, more creativity. Fosu and Owusu switching wings at HT helped.

Samuel's opener was quality. Just outside the box, curled it low, in to the far corner. Lovely stuff.
Fosu's goal looked like an own goal, think it was going wide, hit the defender and went in.
Very soft penalty. Fosu went shoulder to shoulder with their man, as the cross came in.
Final goal was good work from Tanner on the right hand side. A great cross, Samuel muscled his man to get a bit of room and nodded it in nicely.

Tanner, Fosu and Samuel our best players.
Some good corners from Kelly that almost produced a goal or two, but some of his passing 1st half was poor.
One criticism was that our players were too greedy. Good opportunities to cross/pass were spurned in order to cut inside and shoot from distance.

Defence weren't tested much. Bar their right back, Wolves didn't have any decent players.

[SCIAG]

Fosu and Owusu switching wings at HT helped.

That misrepresents what happened. They switched for about ten minutes before HT to mix things up a bit. Otherwise I generally agree with your analysis.

In the first half there wasn't enough intelligent movement, whenever Kelly or Griffin brought the ball forward the front three would all try and get in behind with only Tanner showing for the ball, which resulted in a lot of speculative shots which didn't trouble the goalkeeper. There were some really nice flick ons early on and it seemed like the wingers had a good understanding with the full backs. As the half drew on we saw less and less of that, and the crowd got bored and cold. There was one excellent move just before half time - Fosu ran through the middle, played a perfectly judged through ball for Owusu, who hit an excellent cross. Samuel was in exactly the right place but shot just wide. He really should have scored and would have had another hat trick.

Defensively we weren't great (Sweeney misjudged a through ball, the others got skinned a few times), but that was OK because Wolves' finishing was dreadful. I think they had about three shots on target and they were all pea-rollers.

Things improved in the second half, as noted. I particularly liked some of the link up play after Sammi came on and Tanner switched to the right - and excellent tactical change which immediately resulted in a goal.

We missed the Aarons, who would have helped us control possession a bit better, and Stacey.

A few comments on individuals:
Sweeney - aside from one mistake, he looked confident, always showing for the ball. At one point he ran 50 yards with the ball under little pressure and got a shot on target.
Long - probably the best game I've seen him have. Forgettable first half, but was playing in front of his girlfriend in the second and improved a lot, keeping the ball in play well on a few occasions and he put at least two excellent crosses in.
Griffin - good going forward, less so defensively. Unusual for him tbh.
Shaughnessy - obviously you have to be good to get this far but I'm not sure what he offers. One very good pass to Long (which admittedly needed Owusu to flick it on...) early in the first half, but otherwise pretty forgettable.
Owusu - he's in a difficult spot. He's really best suited to playing as a wing back, but we don't use them... his movement isn't good enough for a winger long term and there's too much competition at full back. Also gave away a silly penalty for shirt tugging.
Tanner - clearly not back to his best yet, but he is obviously a class above the rest of this side. He plays with his head up, he gets into good positions and exploits space well, he has ideas that others don't, the audacity to try them, and the ability to pull them off when he's on his game. I wonder whether he could break into the first team this season...
Fosu - the other creative spark, but a bit inconsistent. Drew quite a few fouls, and bravely got to the ball before a challenge clattered him a few times, but he isn't the livewire he was a few years ago
Samuel - like a cross between early Shane Long and early Jimmy Kebe. Quick, hard working, looks like he's about to fall over. The first goal was a good strike, and his second was a brilliant header. Hopefully in a few years he'll look more like late Shane Long...

[Royal Ginger]

Shane Long died?

[andrew1957]

Good report by SCIAG and cannot disagree with most of what he said.

Having sat through the Bolton bore fest I have to say I enjoyed this match much more, In fact I have enjoyed all the Under 18 and 21 games I have seen over the last few years. It is fantastic to see the young players coming through the Academy and this is something that the club and all supporting RFC should be very prod of.

I have to say that I thought the turn out by number 13 was very poor considering it was a Friday night and free entry. I took my 11 year old grandson and he loved it (especially as he also sat through the Bolton game). What a shame so few of our supporters are interested in the Academy - unless we are playing Man U, Arsenal or Chelsea. I suppose that says a lot about our fan base and who they really support.

I am not sure how many of this team will go on to forge long careers in league football. I think that if he keeps fit that Tanner will. Kelly is very good at times but is so small one wonders of he can possibly be strong enough to cope with a Championship game. Hard to judge the defence as Wolves offered little coming forwards and we dealt with it well. Some of Lincoln's distribution was top draw but he did not have many saves to make.

All round a very good performance by the lads.

[ZacNaloen]

Second Reading goal was a classy backheel as well... from the Wolves defender.

[SCIAG]

Couldn't make Boreham Wood and the stream is pretty terrible. Looks like Sheppard is playing right wing and Lawal at left back, which makes sense offensively but seems risky (and I saw Lawal nearly gift them a goal).

Anyone whose there want to give us an update?

[P!ssed Off]

Went to the game.

Results-wise, a 1-0 loss against a team containing O'Connor, Crowley and Zelalem is not a bad result.
But Reading's performance was really poor.

Have to say the difference between this year's U18s and last year's U18s is massive.
Went to both legs of the FA Youth Cup Semi last year and Reading's team was a case of 10 good players, and 1 great player (Kuhl).
This year's team I'd say is a case of 6 good players and 5 poor players.

Reading were on top the first 15 minutes. Two great bits of play. One driving run from Watson, the RB, who went close with a shot. Another good run from Novakovich as well.

The next 70 minutes it was all Arsenal. Reading hardly had a sniff. And when they did get it, it was a long ball lumped at Cardwell every time, really dire stuff.

Last 10 minutes was fairly even. We could have scored, they had good chances as well.
Thought both penalties decisions were really soft. Had we scored ours, it really would have been a case of robbery though.

Ward. A few very good saves. No chance with penalty. Kicking was atrocious. 6/10
Watson. One quality run and decent shot. Looked good most of the game. 7/10
Osho. Solid at the back. 6/10
Jules. Solid at the back. Slightly more impressive than Osho, though both were decent. 7/10
Lawal. I lost count of the number of awful things he did. The Arsenal fans near me were laughing at him. 2/10
Sheppard. Did nothing for the most of the game, seemed to wake up for the last 10 minutes. 4/10
Husin. Did nothing all game. 3/10
Collins. Did nothing all game. 3/10
Davis. Did nothing all game. 3/10
Novakovich. Impressive for the first 15 minutes. Worked hard all game, but let down by the rest of the midfield. 7/10
Cardwell. Given little chance with the ball being lumped at his head all game, very poor penalty. 5/10

Was sat in front of Rob Dickie, Liam Kelly and Nana Owusu. They didn't seem very impressed either.

Watson, Novakovich and Cardwell are the most likely to reach the 1st team.

[Ian Royal]

Disappointed to hear Husin didn't play well. He looked like one with potential in his cup cameos last season.

What were the ages like? Was the team younger than last years lot were at the time?

[JordCot]

Attempted to watch the stream for this game but gave up when twitter said HT and I was still only 20 mins in after all the buffering. From the glimpses I got the team looked simply not as good as last year. Watson looked decent and did so last year as well. Sheppard didn't do much from what I saw, watched him and Jules play for the Scotland U18's or U19's or something in a tournament in the summer and he looked a bit better but doesn't strike me as a winger, may end up moving inside as an attacking midfielder. Jules is a bit of tank for his age and if he progresses well could be a decent player. Saw a few glimpses of Husin and I thought he looked decent enough in that he seemed to be quite attacking when on the ball, one very nice turn in the first half.

Tbh I don't know an awful lot about this crop of young players, I'm sure like a few fans last years increased coverage of the academy on the OS and on here opened my eyes a bit to academy football and its something I really got interested in since. This is the first bit of the U18's I've seen this year but It looked like the team was poorly balanced compared to last year. The combo of Kelly, Sami Fridge and Kuhl was a great mix of work rate, defensive stability and attacking vision compare that to last night you had Novakovich playing just off the striker when he looks an out and out striker, + the quite attacking Husin and then it was hard to tell whether Collins or Davis was the third central player but they were anonymous. Little threat out wide when compared to the more conventional wingers Fosu and Stacey and Lawal doesn't look as good a fullback as Owusu.

Its a shame they couldn't have progressed a bit further in the comp as would have been nice to see a bit more of them but its hard for any club let alone Reading to churn out an almost new U18 XI every year and them look as good as last years bunch. I would like to think our U21's will have a decent year now though with some of that group looking close to the first team squad

[P!ssed Off]

Disappointed to hear Husin didn't play well. He looked like one with potential in his cup cameos last season.

What were the ages like? Was the team younger than last years lot were at the time?

9 2nd years, and 2 1st years (Davis, Osho).

Last year's team was 8 2nd years and 3 1st years (Watson, Cardwell, Ward).

So this year's team was slightly older.