Reserve Team

[Tiffers]

Can anyone explain the rationale behind giving up the reserve team and who was responsible for that decision?
Was it harry?

It seems more sensible for me to run a reserve team than loaning out players although I can see that runing a reserve team would be more expensive.

 

[Mikegold]

Can anyone explain the rationale behind giving up the reserve team and who was responsible for that decision?
Was it harry?

It seems more sensible for me to run a reserve team than loaning out players although I can see that runing a reserve team would be more expensive.

The reserve league is poor quality and real first team experience is better..sometimes, it's probably just as hit and miss but in theory better.

 

[stov]

the only problem with not having a reserve team is if there are a lot of injuries we dont have any players to call on as they are all out on loan.

 

[eddiebailey]

We still had a reserve team, they just did not play in the reserve league, only in friendlies. That way fixtures could be arranged at times to suit us. When Harry first took over, cancellations for various reasons meant that we ended up with a backlog of rearranged reserve fixtures when Harry was trying to concentrate on the run in, he seems to have regarded them as an annoying distraction. But yes Harry did prioritise the loan system, he had a lot of success developing young players that way at West Ham, and knowing absolutely everyone in the game he found it easy to set loan moves up.