Seasoned youth team watchers - how should we look at the current crop?

[Matt Collins]

Hi,  simple question for those who've watched the youth and reserve teams.

Comparing the youth cup winning side - Ridgewell, Davis, Moore brothers, Fahey I think - with the current crop, how do they compare?

None of that team was really good enough. So are this team generally better? We do well in the reserves league but its a crap standard

[cdbearsfan]

The Youth Cup team did brilliantly to make the final, but they don't seem as full of flare as the Moore Brothers' Youth Cup team. However, I quite like the look of Ellis Deeney at left back and the keeper Siegrist is highly rated.

They seemed pretty young compared to the Newcastle and Chelsea players I saw them against so hopefully they will improve... Simmonds looks a bit like Messi, hopefully he will start playing like him when he's a bit older!

[Andy Clarke]

Simmonds has gone mate.

[paul_e]

I'm not a regular but I've got a couiple of friends who are and basically Halfhuid, Seigrist and Gardener are all going to be great players in their opinion.  They have mentioned someone else as a maybe as well, a forward I think but I can't remember the name.

[TheSandman]

Not Kofi Poyser?

I watched the match V Newcastle and he looked good then. They are a young team so they probably have another few years at that level.

[Andy Clarke]

Poyser has also gone.

Siegrest is well thought of, Gardner has potential to be fantastic but it depends what the injury has done to him, Halfhuid is a bit of a youth team bully in that he is a big lad.

[Monty]

It's almost impossible to tell, even when they start to get to first team age. 20-22/23 tend to be the make-or-break years for all but late bloomers such as Pirlo or Deco.

[cdbearsfan]

Where did Simmonds go? Released? Thought he had potential as a Football League player as a minimum... so we could have got some money for him in a few years at least.

[Andy Clarke]

Simmonds was released.

[cdbearsfan]

Hopefully he won't come back to haunt us then. Come to think of it not too many of our youth team have... Brian McClair is the last one I can think of, and he chose to leave as he was homesick.