I feel Francois is still quite underdone but he's playing and it'll only make him stronger. Good news with the older midfield generation phasing out over the next 4 years. 

Wright starting in a 2-3 win against Blackpool in the League Cup.

Full game for both McGree and Francois, 0-2 win for Fulham. Francois getting a higher rating on my app, but I guess that's easier on the winning team.

I got so excited when I saw the rating only to realise it’s a league cup. Still really good for him can only lead to breaking into the first team 

He's in a very good position, clearly wanted by his team and given minutes but not thrown into the deep end before he's ready. He's on the right trajectory, hope it continues.

Yep, ive been saying it on here repeatedly. We need to stop seeing 20-21 as young. Its not in football terms. Most players in Europe by this age have close to 100 games under their belt. We are sending across underdone players and then wonder why they fail. Until we shift the mindset (and lengthen our season) this will always happen.

Southampton play Newport (League 2) in EFL cup tomorrow morning, Caleb Watts wasnt in last u23 squad on weekend so hopefully that means he is in squad for this game. Fingers crossed he gets some minutes to stake his claim for getting back into the first team squad for league games.

 not much players can do about it

we have a short season and no 2nd div so players don't peak until quite late. A 23 year old aussie is probably as old as a 20 year old foreigner in terms of minutes played most of the time

Kev's Yokohama and Langerak's Nagoya are both playing separate games at 8pm AEST today, both on Optus Sport.

You play NPL mens football at 16-17 do 50+ games then move into a-league squad then in Europe by 20. See Alou Kuol. The pathway is there. I don't think the youth teams is best way to go they just go from the youth academy here to a youth academy in Europe.

Only TOP European players have bulk games and appearances before 21. The mid tier and lower tier players often haven't appeared yet. 24 and 25 year olds who haven't broken through into the first team at their club in Europe need to panic and come home but not 20 year olds. Sometimes even top tier players don't break through early. Look at Mahrez, Kante and Vardy, they jump to mind straight away. 

That said, our players are severely under rated and poorly managed in their European careers. This is just a fact. 

The time where we export players to European league at first team such as the Bundesliga will be a progression that we have made steps into our youth system and overall pathway.

At the moment when the clubs export them most dont go to that level and often below that in most times to u19 or reserve based teams and often dont progress enough to the first team level.
Im more of a fan of transfers to lower level leagues sometimes within the same top 4 league country such as Genreau's move to Ligue 2, as long as they play in the first team this is progress for the help of the national team.

However it will be a great day when a top 4 league team pays a decent transfer fee to a player here and that goes straight to the first team level and plays and not to the u19 or reserve team but at the moment we are long way from that situation.

Has anyone got any idea what's happened to karacic? He wasn't even on the team sheet for either the cup game or first match for Brescia.

Grant starting against Jeonbuk

Kev making it 0-1 just before HT with a possession based counter.

Kawasaki Frontale lost and Marinos won 4-0. Muskie and YFM now only 1 point off top spot. Now won 5 and drawn won since being in charge and scored 14 goals to 1 in his last 3 games. Incredible really. 

Strong chance Watts plays for Southampton tomorrow morning in the League Cup. He was left out of the U23s for their game this morning. 

He's probably on the way to the Socceroos camp - game against China is a week away

Lachlan Jackson scored a worldie in the K League.

Not bad for a guy who was Newcastle’s 4th choice CB.

https://twitter.com/marcuschhan/status/1430510221240115206?s=21

Lachlan Jackson 90 mins & scored a goal for Suwon 

Interesting that Southampton rate him that highly as he didn't stand out that much on his international performances.

Taggart dragged a halftime, Cerezo lost 5-1 at home. Manager might've lost the plot.

Suwon/Jackson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0UWXCQMwLI
Marinos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkYnLG_d0jc

Kuol scored again for the u21’s. No watts 

Juric subbed on with 20 to go 

Huge that they recalled him and now giving him game time.   

There was nothing online anywhere about his absence. A Czech player named Mateju has played RB the past two games, fingers crossed it doesn't mean he will struggle to get a game.

From all reports he was very strong for Brescia last season.

broken record, but the fact a k league quality player gets 7 a league games by the age of 25 shows the need for a 2nd division

Received a 6.6 and 6.5 rating on SofaScore in both his games. Hopefully there's an improvement from him in the near future, as Dinamo are not known for their patience at all, and it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they went out and signed a striker in the coming days.

Surely he gets more than a 20 min bench cameo to be judged 

But that means we are effectively limiting ourselves from ever having a TOP European player because of lack of games.There are always exceptions, but if we as a community change our outlook to see 21 as a senior player and not a young kid like Europe does we maximise our chances of producing these level players and also players who peak later which arent super common. 

At the moment we are just accepting 21-22 as young which is the wrong mindset. We basically have the same as the U.S.college system where most of their players debut at 21-22 after college. Except without the clear concise system which causes players to hop from academies and teams to try get a chance