And it's a team bolstered by the presence of Franca, Ebiowei and Ahamada alongside regulars such as Ozoh, Wells-Morrison and Adamarola.

Basically, the first half has provided more evidence that these lads still have some way to go if they want to paly at the top level.

Men against boys, I'm afraid. The lads have had a chastening evening. Let's hope they learn from it and realize just how much more they need to do to achieve regular football in a professional league team (even in Leagues 1 and 2).

Just to mention that quite a few other U21 sides came a cropper against "modest" opposition so it's not just our academy players who are still some way off the mark.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this was a cup game, right? The rest of what I write is based on that and just guessing by me, so no source, pure conjecture.

This club realizes its limitations. It focuses its attention on where the money is. Thus, the first team play Man Utd at Old Trafford on the Tuesday in a cup game and it is men v boys. We are schooled. More or less the SAME team turns out at the SAME ground against the SAME oppo for the league game just a few days later and we win... and deserve the points.

U21 is different, but it has a league and progress in the league against the other top U21 teams improves those players we want to feed through into the EPL. But cup games v lesser teams?

Commit to that cup and you are stretching resources and risking the fitness of key players. Please note that, while this was a side bolstered by first XI, it was more or less the same team that hammered Spurs U21 away in the league 1-7 just a few days earlier.

Thus, I will personally not rush to judgment on readiness for first team football. This game was treated like an early pre-season friendly. And the positive to take is that (to my knowledge) no player ended the game with an injury.

Job done. Move on.

If our under 21s were beating professional sides it would be nice but it would also be unusual.

Think of what an under 21 side is composed of.....Firstly these are youngsters who are still developing their game and at least another two years away from being men proper.

Then there is the reality that half of the team are probably league one or two in terms of how good they can be.

It's about identifying those other players with a chance of making it and loaning them out to test that.

Some of them can be sold and occasionally a gem will come through to our squad.

Edited by Stirlingsays (08 Nov 2023 11.16am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

But not a knock out match at this stage of the competition. We are in a mini league with 3 League 1 and 2 sides with the top two progressing to the knock-out stage.

From what Mark Bright was saying last might during the game, this is the kind of competition we want our lads to feature in (and presumably progress as far as we can in). They will learn far more playing the likes of Wycombe (lost 1-0 to a last minute dubious penalty), Wimbledon and Stevenage than playing in the U21s league.

We put out a strong side and whilst we had more possession than Wimbledon, we didn't use it very well and we seemed to have been intimidated by Wimbledon's performance in the first 20 minutes. Bright was certainly disappointed by our display - indeed, we only started to look threatening in the final 10 minutes of the match.