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Alfreton Town v Sheffield Wednesday XI


Guest Saturday Owl

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First of all, there are absolutely no excuses for Sheffield Wednesday U18's being 0-14 by ANYBODY including Barcelona. And make no mistake, it's our strongest academy team. Cuff, Tumilty, Modest and Nyoni have all been around the first team set-up. Regardless of other factors, the players need to have a long, hard look at themselves, this level of performance is simply unacceptable.

Onto McAuley. I have never been a fan, and can remember quite a few of our fans saying he should have been the first team manager following Laws' tenure - laughable. Having seen his style of management compared to other academy managers from other clubs, I've been of the opinion for a long time that he shouldn't be anywhere near our club, he is completely counter-productive and is often vicious with his criticism. Again, I am not excusing the players, but it's no wonder their confidence is shot to pieces with McAuley in charge. I've personally seen him scream vitriol at players for misplacing passes, threaten to substitute a defender for clearing his lines and literally turn his back on the players during the last game of last season, preferring to watch the U16's instead.

His methods of developing players includes fielding youngsters out of position for months on end just to 'beef them up', and his recruitment process this summer consisted of giving up on local lads and journeying to Durham and London, where he apparently signed up four black lads after watching them play on public parks.

Of course there are different managerial styles, but he comes across as a bully to me, and he should have been sacked long, long ago, and Lee Strafford has a lot to answer for for offering him a five year contract, unheard of in youth football.

And while both the players and McAuley need to take large chunks of blame for their part in this disaster, you really have to question the wisdom of fielding kids against a senior professional football club. The academy has a long standing annual match with Dinnington Town seniors, who always provide a tough game and often beat the youngsters. For them to be asked to step up and play a side five divisions above Dinnington is not on.

Pro's that didn't play yesterday should have played today - where were O'Donnell, Beevers, Jones etc...? If they couldn't play, the fixture should have been postponed, the gulf in quality was simply too much and would help neither team in their preparation for the new season.

Alan Irvine was the man who started the trend of fielding the youngsters, a trend which was continued under gary megson, neither seemingly having any regard for the confidence of the kids who repeatedly took batterings on the pitch.

Thankfully the reserve set-up has been scrapped this year so the lads will only have to focus on playing academy football, which is tough enough for them as it is, but Milan Mandaric still needs to be asking questions as to why this fixture and result was ever allowed to happen, and why we are so lacking in strength in depth.

Excellent post Kivo, especially the bit in bold.

I know someone personally who has been the 'victim' of his style of management, and this has benefited neither the player nor Sheffield Wednesday.

Definitely time for him to move on in my opinion.

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Guest bartos

Forget the football league, everyone in the rumbleing country laughing at us.

Is this what people really care about?

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I find it astonishing that so many people seem to think our "kids" (in reality our youth team and young professionals) shouldn't be playing a non league side - many clubs have their youth teams play non-league teams - the bigger clubs field their youth teams in the carling cup - remember Arsenal Academy 6 pigs 0?

It would be a big ask for our academy to beat a conference side - but they should be able to give them a game

14-0 is sunday league division 8 stuff - totally and utterly embarrasing

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I feel sorry for some of those players, they've had it drummed into them for years that results don't matter and now we've got young kids fearing for their future. I know some ppl will say well so they should but for me it's the academy staff that should be held responsible. If I was Milan Mcauley would be in my office in the morning begging for his job. 14-0 us unacceptable at any level.

It looks bad on the club as a whole

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Why has no official comment been made on this? Went on official site and not even a mention. Someone needs to take responsibility for this. Not only is the result a joke we seriously need to look at why this happend and was allowed to happen!

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Still nothing reported on the official site yet. Hoping that this humiliation will just blow over perhaps? :dry:

Edited by ak15
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Guest Saturday Owl

We need to email the club and ask them what the f*ck did this happen for? It's pretty serious, even if it was just a friendly.

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To be honest, McAuley's job should be untenable after this.

14-0 isn't just a defeat. It's evidence that there are fundamental issues with him, his methods and our system. No group of lads representing a professional football club should be losing 14-0 against anybody. I bet you could have sent an Owlstalk XI out there today and the result wouldn't have been much worse, at the very least.

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First of all, there are absolutely no excuses for Sheffield Wednesday U18's being 0-14 by ANYBODY including Barcelona. And make no mistake, it's our strongest academy team. Cuff, Tumilty, Modest and Nyoni have all been around the first team set-up. Regardless of other factors, the players need to have a long, hard look at themselves, this level of performance is simply unacceptable.

Onto McAuley. I have never been a fan, and can remember quite a few of our fans saying he should have been the first team manager following Laws' tenure - laughable. Having seen his style of management compared to other academy managers from other clubs, I've been of the opinion for a long time that he shouldn't be anywhere near our club, he is completely counter-productive and is often vicious with his criticism. Again, I am not excusing the players, but it's no wonder their confidence is shot to pieces with McAuley in charge. I've personally seen him scream vitriol at players for misplacing passes, threaten to substitute a defender for clearing his lines and literally turn his back on the players during the last game of last season, preferring to watch the U16's instead.

His methods of developing players includes fielding youngsters out of position for months on end just to 'beef them up', and his recruitment process this summer consisted of giving up on local lads and journeying to Durham and London, where he apparently signed up four black lads after watching them play on public parks.

Of course there are different managerial styles, but he comes across as a bully to me, and he should have been sacked long, long ago, and Lee Strafford has a lot to answer for for offering him a five year contract, unheard of in youth football.

And while both the players and McAuley need to take large chunks of blame for their part in this disaster, you really have to question the wisdom of fielding kids against a senior professional football club. The academy has a long standing annual match with Dinnington Town seniors, who always provide a tough game and often beat the youngsters. For them to be asked to step up and play a side five divisions above Dinnington is not on.

Pro's that didn't play yesterday should have played today - where were O'Donnell, Beevers, Jones etc...? If they couldn't play, the fixture should have been postponed, the gulf in quality was simply too much and would help neither team in their preparation for the new season.

Alan Irvine was the man who started the trend of fielding the youngsters, a trend which was continued under gary megson, neither seemingly having any regard for the confidence of the kids who repeatedly took batterings on the pitch.

Thankfully the reserve set-up has been scrapped this year so the lads will only have to focus on playing academy football, which is tough enough for them as it is, but Milan Mandaric still needs to be asking questions as to why this fixture and result was ever allowed to happen, and why we are so lacking in strength in depth.

Thats quite possibly your best OT post !

spot on !

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Alfreton Town are now TRENDING on twitter.

flips sake, this embarrassments national.

Milan, you may have a lot on your plate - but it's time to cut some costs and stop wasting money on academy staff who aren't doing their jobs - Monday morning, get rid of them.

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