Sadddle up for a Midland gallop. Away to Walsall, Sat Nov 2nd 3-0'clock.

[TANGODANCER]

"Up fert Cup" time as the White look to maintain a run of League form in The F.A. Cup. The Saddlers have a good record against us, but that was then. Now is now. If he plays, I'm looking forward to a Lolos celebration. Should he score a direct goal we'll have to bring him back from Winter Hill. Walsall too have changed and are a young fit team. All depends what the boss wants from us.Will he too bring the fledglings in, or stick with experience.

So, cup magic, the promotion chase, or both ? What sayeth the oracle?

[sonicthewhite]

I reckon the team that finished the game on Tues night will be the ones to start this one. Mostly youngsters on the bench with a couple of first teamers.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Back three and central midfield we haven’t got much choice, unless we think Arfield can play in the middle.

[The_Gun]

Back three and central midfield we haven’t got much choice, unless we think Arfield can play in the middle.

That’s assuming Evatt won’t play any of our B team, which based on his past record, is a fairly safe assumption to make.

I’ve always been slightly bemused by the gaffer’s unwillingness to play youngsters, even in relatively meaningless games. Is it because we’ve never had any quality in our reserve/youth ranks during his tenure, or is he just inherently conservative in this regard?

[officer_dibble]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

[The_Gun]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

[Mar]

I was hoping Walsall would be on a bad run of form, but no, they're sat 2nd in the table in League Two. So this is very much us playing an in-form Walsall side. No resting on laurels so to speak.

There's few in the B-team that I think will be able to reliably start and deliver in the cup. I'm thinking Matheson as the main one, but after that we're scraping the barrel in terms of players who have had barely any experience.

Matheson, Sharples, Hutchinson, Inwood

The others that I would've thought would've gotten game time, the likes of Conway, Khumbeni, Andreucci, etc. are out on loan or coming back from injury (Carty).

Regarding Carty, i'm hoping he doesn't go the way of Finlay Lockett. Scores a loan, comes back from injury and doesn't kick on. Carty looks decent enough to make a go of it.


I'm expecting we'll see the return of JDC at CB alongside Rico and Johnston with Matheson at RB.

[Mar]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

He looked far off the pace in matches i've seen him in. The drop off from Williams/Schon was noticeable. The League Two education is well worth it for him and hopefully he can kick on. Seems like reasonable cover.

[Worthy4England]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

He looked far off the pace in matches i've seen him in. The drop off from Williams/Schon was noticeable. The League Two education is well worth it for him and hopefully he can kick on. Seems like reasonable cover.

Surely that's why you loan 'em out? Limited opportunities here above B Team, needs regular football, can hold it in L2 whilst he continues to develop, gets much more game time...

[The_Gun]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

He looked far off the pace in matches i've seen him in. The drop off from Williams/Schon was noticeable. The League Two education is well worth it for him and hopefully he can kick on. Seems like reasonable cover.

Has he ever played for us?

[BWFC_Insane]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

He looked far off the pace in matches i've seen him in. The drop off from Williams/Schon was noticeable. The League Two education is well worth it for him and hopefully he can kick on. Seems like reasonable cover.

What matches are those?

[truewhite15]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

He looked far off the pace in matches i've seen him in. The drop off from Williams/Schon was noticeable. The League Two education is well worth it for him and hopefully he can kick on. Seems like reasonable cover.

What matches are those?

Those would be the pre-season friendlies where he was the only available LWB option. He did alright, but I quite agree that getting him on loan into a L2 team where he's playing the majority is far better for his development than having him scrabbling for the odd cup game here. Schon and Williams are better than him right now.

I think it's massively unfair to accuse Evatt of not giving him a chance.

[boltonboris]

We could see him play LWB tomorrow, with Randell RWB and Dacres-Cogley playing RCB

[BWFC_Insane]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

He looked far off the pace in matches i've seen him in. The drop off from Williams/Schon was noticeable. The League Two education is well worth it for him and hopefully he can kick on. Seems like reasonable cover.

What matches are those?

Those would be the pre-season friendlies where he was the only available LWB option. He did alright, but I quite agree that getting him on loan into a L2 team where he's playing the majority is far better for his development than having him scrabbling for the odd cup game here. Schon and Williams are better than him right now.

I think it's massively unfair to accuse Evatt of not giving him a chance.

No criticism of sending him on loan. We should be doing it with anyone of a certain age who is not going to play here. He needs experience and clearly wasn’t at the point where you’d be chucking him into our team.

However the brief snippets we’ve seen I’ve always been relatively impressed, but it’s such a small sample size I wouldn’t be saying he’s looked ‘far off the pace’.

[Worthy4England]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

He looked far off the pace in matches i've seen him in. The drop off from Williams/Schon was noticeable. The League Two education is well worth it for him and hopefully he can kick on. Seems like reasonable cover.

What matches are those?

Those would be the pre-season friendlies where he was the only available LWB option. He did alright, but I quite agree that getting him on loan into a L2 team where he's playing the majority is far better for his development than having him scrabbling for the odd cup game here. Schon and Williams are better than him right now.

I think it's massively unfair to accuse Evatt of not giving him a chance.

No criticism of sending him on loan. We should be doing it with anyone of a certain age who is not going to play here. He needs experience and clearly wasn’t at the point where you’d be chucking him into our team.

However the brief snippets we’ve seen I’ve always been relatively impressed, but it’s such a small sample size I wouldn’t be saying he’s looked ‘far off the pace’.

Agree, mate - not a hill to die on. Getting plenty of game time elsewhere vs minimal here.

[Mar]

I don’t think we’ve had anyone that good. Matheson is clearly the best and he’ll start tomorrow. I think the lad who came on against villa, Inwood(?), is worth starting personally - he was a big lad didn’t look physically out of place. Would mean we could rest Santos or Johnston who we really cannot afford to lose.

I genuinely don’t know the answer to this. However, Conway is showing himself to be at least a good League Two player, and I don’t think he was ever given a chance by Evatt.

He looked far off the pace in matches i've seen him in. The drop off from Williams/Schon was noticeable. The League Two education is well worth it for him and hopefully he can kick on. Seems like reasonable cover.

Surely that's why you loan 'em out? Limited opportunities here above B Team, needs regular football, can hold it in L2 whilst he continues to develop, gets much more game time...

Definitely the reason to send him out on loan. Decent prospect, looking competent in defence but not offering enough going forward, different story at Crewe if you go off THAT goal.

Has he ever played for us?

Pre-season friendlies.

[The_Gun]

Yeah look maybe Conway has developed massively since being on loan and/or circumstances never conspired for him to get cup minutes when he was here.

I just seem to recall plenty of cup fixtures in recent years when our first team has been injury riddled, yet Evatt hasn’t used the youths.

[TANGODANCER]

Yeah look maybe Conway has developed massively since being on loan and/or circumstances never conspired for him to get cup minutes when he was here.

I just seem to recall plenty of cup fixtures in recent years when our first team has been injury riddled, yet Evatt hasn’t used the youths.

Probably, with managers living under the shadow of the guillotine, match to match, he's not quite as brave in his selections as he would normally be . We claim cup games are unimportant but nobody still likes to lose them. Hobson's choice.

[Mar]

Yeah look maybe Conway has developed massively since being on loan and/or circumstances never conspired for him to get cup minutes when he was here.

I just seem to recall plenty of cup fixtures in recent years when our first team has been injury riddled, yet Evatt hasn’t used the youths.

Yeah, this has been a frustrating sight at times. We've got a B-team ready to go to support the first team and we've got a youth team ready to produce and yet barely a sniff of reserve teamers making the step up.

Even when we've had a bench containing players they've barely got a look in.

Evatt prioritizes winning, but when we're playing pointless fixtures (games like the FLT after we've already qualified out of the group) we should be looking to play youngsters.

[Worthy4England]

I think it's really tricky with yooves. He's only turned 21 in September, and not all (thinking say 2/3 years back when he'd be 17/18, early part of season) are going to be ready for the differing level of physicality. Some will, some won't, you hope he's applied reasonable judgement. Only from my rugby playing days, but you don't half notice the difference getting hit by a 27 year old brickie than most 18 year old colts - even on a cleanly executed tackle...