The new year brings new starts for reserve-team players. Having not played during the first-team’s manic festive period, many of them are soon on the move. Too old for the youth team, unable to break into the first-team and having played enough games or the Under-23s in empty grounds on Monday afternoons, they know it is time for pastures new. Young pros go on loan for first-team experience, while older players either sign a deal with another club or a mutual consent form as they are released.
Last January, Spurs sent Under-23 players on loan to Burnley, Portsmouth, Exeter, Ipswich, Northampton, Southend and Stevenage. Bereft of his best or oldest players, the club’s Under-23s coach Wayne Burnett started again, giving the most promising scholars the chance to step up. The same pattern is repeated throughout Premier League 2, the Professional Development League and Central League.
Reserve squads have become calendar-year operations, running from January to December rather than August to May. When the January transfer window shuts, most second teams look very different and some are decimated. Only lost souls and promising teenagers remain as the transfer merry-go-round spins reserve sides out of recognition.
Half of the Manchester City Under-23s who played at Spurs in September were AWOL last Monday when City lined up against Arsenal at Borehamwood in the Premier League 2 match. The two mid-table sides should have been well matched, but the line-ups were so lop-sided that Arsenal romped to an extremely comfortable 5-1 win. Only one City player was past his teens – Dutch defender Philippe Sandler – who was also their only player to have made a first-team appearance (albeit just a few minutes in the FA Cup thrashing of Rotherham earlier this month).
Arsenal were considerably stronger, but may not be by the time the window shuts. Built on a defensive unit of 20-somethings – including Greek centre-back Konstantinos Mavropanos, who was returning from long-term injury – their exhilarating attack was spearheaded by regular first-team sub Eddie Nketiah, with FA Cup star Joe Willock enjoying himself as a support striker. Arsenal’s pace and trickery out wide brought gasps, with Bukayo Saka cutting in off the left wing to devastating effect. I was not alone in feeling sorry for City’s 17-year-old left-back Nat Ogbeta, who was given a torrid evening by Xavier Amaechi on Arsenal’s right.
Arsenal have advanced a whole group of young English talent from the youth team to the 23s and into their EFL Cup and Europa League sides. Now Saka has joined Nketiah and Emile Smith-Rowe in making his Premier League debut. Who is next? It would be little surprise to any of the few hundred at Borehamwood if it was lightning right-back Jordi Osei-Tutu, potentially the best footballer to emerge from Slough.
The FA Cup ties in January also bring opportunities for reserves, a brief spotlight on players who have spent the last six months scurrying around in the dark, dank corners of professional football. Premier League clubs field sides more familiar to those fans who keep up with the Professional Development League and Checkatrade Trophy. It can be their last or only appearances for their parent clubs.
Among the Chelsea youngsters given a game by Antonio Conte last year in a live, televised tie with Norwich City was Ethan Ampadu. Ampadu’s next game was at Eppleton Colliery Welfare in front of 182 hardcore Sunderland fans in a Sunday afternoon fixture in Premier League 2. This year, Maurizio Sarri only softened enough to hand shirts to Ampadu and Bayern target Callum Hudson-Odoi at home to Forest.
Tottenham had two debutants at Tranmere in Under-23s sweeper George Marsh and right-back Timothy Eyoma, and Ole Gunnar Solskjær gave some minutes to Dutch teenager Tahith Chong against Reading. Will they be given another chance in the fourth round at the weekend?
Fantasy football
After Stoke City took 4,000 fans to Port Vale, the Checkatrade Trophy threw up another spicy derby when 16,654 supporters descended on the Stadium of Light to see Sunderland swat aside Newcastle’s Under-21s. Newcastle fielded the same outfield 10 who came from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Sunderland in the Premier League 2 Division Two four days earlier and they held their own for the first half before conceding four goals after the break to the League One giants.
This will be the biggest crowd some of the Toon youngsters will ever experience. Local police praised fans’ behaviour, the chant “We saw you cry on Netflix” from the 3,000 or so Newcastle fans being many neutrals’ highlight of the night. Sunderland play Manchester City Under-21s in the quarter-finals on Tuesday night.
This week in … 1977
Speaking of huge crowds at reserve games, there were 12,000 at Swindon v Birmingham in the Football Combination in January 1977. Granted, there is not a huge amount to do on midweek winter evenings in Wiltshire’s metropolis but reserve football was never that popular. Swindon were distributing vouchers for their FA Cup tie against Everton.
With such a massive backing, Town won 2-0 against a Blues side bolstered by first-team centre-forward Kenny Burns, who had scored 14 goals in 20 top-flight games that season for Birmingham. Apparently Burns dropped into a back three in the second half. A couple of years later he won the European Cup while playing centre-back for Forest!
Next man up
Jürgen Klopp rested Allison Becker for Liverpool’s recent FA Cup tie at Wolves, giving Simon Mignolet a place in the team and regular reserve keeper Caoimhin Kelleher a spot on the bench, which meant a promotion to the Under-23s for a keeper who has scored for his country.
In 2016, while on loan at Cockfosters from his local club Barnet, Kai McKenzie-Lyle was called up to play for his grandparent’s homeland, Guyana, aged just 18. In the last minute of extra-time against Suriname he came up for a corner and scored. In his next international, he saved a penalty against Jamaica!
McKenzie-Lyle, who only arrived as a trialist last summer after turning down a new contract at Barnet, made his second Premier League 2 appearance in the 1-1 draw against Spurs – and against a couple of his Enfield Grammar School mates.
Remember me?
Arsenal have entrusted their young Gunners with a former Highbury hero, Freddie Ljungberg. Now 41, bald on top with a grey beard, the Swedish star was a vocal figure in the technical area at Borehamwood on Monday evening, barking instructions and encouragement.
With his side 3-0 up at half time, Ljungberg – learning a trick from the old master Arsène Wenger – left his players to themselves for the first few minutes of the break, preferring to stand at the dugout in conference with his assistants. It is 12 years since he last played for Arsenal before increasingly short spells at West Ham, in MLS, at Celtic, in Japan and finally India. Now in his second coaching role with the Gunners, Ljungberg is as highly rated as the exhilarating players he coaches.
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