Is it time to utilise the development squad?
Posted on November 15th, 2010 | 101 Comments |
Of course, being a third of the way through the season also has it pitfalls. It’s a well used cliche, but it is a long, hard season, and injuries and suspensions soon mount up.
Newcastle are going through a little spell of injuries and suspensions themselves at the moment. The suspensions to Joey Barton and Chieck Tiote have added to what seems to be a growing injury list, with Andy Carroll being the latest player to encounter some form of injury problem after he picked up a groin problem in the 0-0 draw against Fulham at the weekend – An injury that could hamper bigger lad making his England debut on Wednesday night.
Few can deny that losing Carroll will be a massive blow to the team, if we do end up losing him to injury of course. The Gatsehead lad has established himself as a key figure in th Newcastle side, and losing what he brings to the team is far from ideal. The exact same thing can be said for Cheick Tiote who has been largely excellent since his he made his debut against Everton back in September.
Now, replacing these players won’t be easy.
In the case of Andy Carroll, we have Shola Ameobi who can come in and replace him. The problem with that is that Shola is himself struggling with a hamstring injury. That will mean that the responsibility of leading the line could well fall to Nile Ranger, who has been getting minutes on the pitch in recent weeks.
Joey Barton has been playing on the right of midfield, and he has been playing very well in fact and has set up a fair amount of goals in recent weeks. He had been replaced by Danny Guthrie for the Fulham match, but given the fact that we are a bit light on strikers I would hazard a guess that Guthrie will be tucked into the middle of the park allowing Kevin Nolan to move into a more advanced role. I would expect that Wayne Routledge will come in and play on the right side of midfield.
As for Tiote, I guess that the direct replacement for him will be Alan Smith.
You see, even though it isn’t ideal, we can just about cover the injuries and suspensions that we currently have. The problem with doing that is that it leaves our substitutes bench looking rather sparse, which is where our development squad could, and should, come into play.
Waiting in the wings we have players like Haris Vuckic, Shane Ferguson, Ryan Donaldson and Brad Inman among others, who can all step up to the bench. I don’t think for one moment that any of those will start, but at least they will be there ready to come on if we need some fresh, eager, hungry legs.
It may be another cliche, but football is a squad game, and Newcastle will have to utilise all of it to deal with the various injuries and suspensions that inevitably crop up. Looking at the long-term development of our younger players, some involvement in the first-team can only be a good thing in my opinion.
Maybe we’ll find out if the kids are alright after all?
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
carrol hasent trained with england