FL2: Macclesfield v Torquay United 26th Sept 2009

How can you make such a sweeping statement without any first hand knowlege of the player's ability?

How can you talk about "sending him back" when he has just arrived on a three month deal and has barely met the rest of the squad let alone played any football?

How can you suggest OUR club loses it's integrity within the professional game by acting in such an unprofessional manner and without showing any responsibility towards a young professional?

What do you think such an action would do to the club's and manager's standing in the eyes of his fellow managers and coaches?

A silly and knee jerk statement if ever I heard one!

Only a dreamer would have anticipated a player who had only a couple of training sessions (and one of those a "Friday warm down") to get to know his team mates moves, strengths and weaknesses to be used from the off. Maybe if the score had gone in our favour in the second half you would have seen him allowed to make a contribution, but as two of the substitutions had already been forced on the manager this clearly wasn't going to happen last Saturday.

You say we are not some "nursery club", but finance dictates that in this day and age small clubs like ourselves, Hereford, Aldershot, Lincoln (I could go on and on)
depend heavily on the loan system to provide their managers with "numbers" to work with and enables "developing players" to move out of their parent clubs where they are not yet ready for First Team exposure, to get the next stage of their football education under their belt.

You've been going to football long enough Dave to watch this evolve from the days of Frank O'Farrell pioneering it in the form of signing young guns like Bill Kitchener, Bob Glozier and others even before there was a formal loan system and then keeping to a gentleman's agreement to send them back to their parent club later. Even the legendary Don Mills originally came to Plainmoor in that fashion on a "health improvement programme" when QPR (I think it was) arranged for him to come and live in the fresh sea air as an antidote to his chronic acne affliction, well before he eventually joined us on a permanent basis from Leeds United a few years later.

Describing an eighteen year old who has just been purchased for well in excess of one hundred thousand pounds by a smaller than average sized Championship club as a "young hopeful" is a bit imaginative if I might say so and if the person who sanctioned such a considerable investment for a club of that size were to read that I think they would be somewhat preturbed.

There is a marked difference between young players like the Posh pair who are obviously upwardly mobile and one who is clearly not of the standard of the club loaning him out or releasing him (like Williams?)and therefore looking to establish himself lower down the ladder.

The Jelly's Diary has TWO new entries this week!

What were Buck's precise words? The only ones I can find are from Monday's Herald: "I didn't think it was the right situation to put a young lad like him (18) on (on Saturday)."

I read that as saying it wasn't appropriate to send Mills on as the third substitute in the context of the game.

With the return of Mansell and Charnock there will at least be some optimism that we can end this run of five defeats. Lose again against what is deemed a poor side and the knives will be out big time. Crucial this one and we will have to wait and see if Bucks has the skills to re-motivate our confidence drained squad. No doubt Mans will be committed as always and Buckle has always managed injured players well bu those lingering thoughts that if he does get injured again with no adequate cover will return to haunt him.
Low score draw on the cards for me.

Rob

That's pretty much the team I would expect to see.

My personal choice would be Charnock instead of Hodges at left-back and for Ellis to retain his place at CB.

This is the system that Buckle went for at Cambridge least year when we had had a similar run of results.