Dave K. wrote:
I get why they rested most of their 17, just don't understand why they loaned 3 players, when they could have played 3 more academy players, its not as if it would have made any difference to the results of the first team and reserve team.
Despite resting 10 plus players they only has 4 players in that 17 to come through the academy.
The three loan players are all 20 and will all have turned 21 by the the middle of October. Between them, they’ve more than 20 games for SL clubs, plus bits and pieces on loan with Championship clubs. The academy players are 2 years younger and those are a big 2 years for development. While I assume you’ve intentionally confused academy products and academy players elsewhere, if you don’t understand why playing seven academy
players away at Wigan might be the taking the step from ‘brave’ to bonkers… maybe you’ve confused yourself more than anybody else?
The results wouldn’t have been different but the scores likely would have been. 64-6 and 74-12 were big enough margins. There used to be a Leeds fan who’d encourage us to bin off Ben Fisher to give Ben Kaye a chance - because, if we weren’t going to win a trophy, we shouldn’t worry too much about winning games and we might as well give young British players a chance. Almost like he didn’t have our best interests at the forefront of his mind.
When Hull shipped 60 against Wigan with a depleted side, with Walker, Simm and Longstaff on loan - would you really have wanted to include more teenagers than the three you had on the bench that day? Would being part of a team that shipped a potentially historic score have been good for their development? Even a year later, Smith deploys them only occasionally and cautiously.