Plastic Hawk wrote:Buckos Boys wrote:Please don't take my comments as pro-Merson. I would say however that from the LCFC and NFFC website, Bennett had made 1 substitute appearance to the end of the 03/04 season and Fryatt 4 full and 7 sub appearances (1 goal) plus his time with Carlisle. Williams and Taylor had not played
I added the last bit of my post in case anyone thought I was accusing you of being pro-Merson. I would never dream of accusing any Saddler of such a terrible crime!! :D
Some other young team players Merson selected in his 18 month stint in charge: Atieno, Bradley, Coleman, Harkness, McDermott, Willetts, Sztybel, Nicholls, Tilt.
That's virtually the entire youth team (once you include Dann and Demontagnac it probably was) - and none of them (with the excpetion of Bradley and Nicholls) are close to the first team now. In fact, many of them have moved on. On the other hand, Scott Dann, picked up only one appearance as sub under Merson. Basically Merson just picked whoever he happened to spot wandering round at the end of training on Friday afternoon - and even then he managed to almost totally miss the most talented of the lot in Dann. He doesn't deserve any credit for haphazardly throwing young kids into the side at random.
Exactly. I got sick of hearing "at least he's giving the kids a chance" when Merscum was in charge - he did, they didn't measure up and, who knows, he might have ruined a couple of careers in the process, by throwing them in too early. Remember, people are talking about Bradley not being ready yet after Tuesday night, yet Merson gave him his debut in the last game of the season - not the season before last, but the one before that - as long ago as May 2005!