Should U21s play in the EFL trophy?, socks, haircuts and a mismatch – Notes on Huddersfield Town’s 6-2 win over Newcastle U21s

Huddersfield Town beat Newcastle United’s Under 21 6-2 on Tuesday night and the scoreline, if anything, flatters Newcastle United’s youngsters as it was clear from the first 30 seconds of this game that Town would be comfortable winners. 

Even though the opposition was modest, Town remained professional and put in a disciplined performance where they did enough to convincingly beat their opponent without having to push themselves too hard. 

I said in the player ratings article that this is a match that it’s hard to draw too many conclusions from but I’m going to have a go anyway…

A clear mismatch

Winning by a four-goal margin might seem like a flattering result for the winning team but I think it’s the other way around and Town could have won this game by an even wider margin. Newcastle U21s had a few moments of quality but for long periods they were well, well short of the pace and Town completely dominated the game. 

After going 2-0 up quite quickly, there was a long period in the first half where Town reduced their intensity and just toyed with their opponent. In fairness to Newcastle U21s, they dropped back and tried to reduce our attacking threat but there were still huge gaps to exploit if we’d have lifted our game even a little bit. 

The response to their first goal illustrated how easy this game was for Town, as we responded by going up the other end and scoring almost straight away. It looked like conceding acted as a reminder that we were in a competitive game and we turned it on just enough to re-establish the two goal buffer.

The key difference between the teams was how much time they wanted on the ball. We moved the ball quickly and looked a bit shocked about the space we were being allowed to advance up the pitch. Whereas they looked stunned by how quickly we pressed them and tended to give the ball straight back to us whenever they got it. When discussing young players, there’s often a conversation about the step up from youth football to competitive men’ s football. This game showed the difference. 

A goal fest

With there being eight goals in this game and it being likely many fans didn’t catch the game, I thought I’d give a quick run down of each goal.

1-0 – Jack Whatmough scored one of the softest goals you’ll ever see. Ruben Roosken must have been instructed to swing corners in close to their keeper as this routine really exposed this weakness. Whatmough, despite having two defenders next to him, nodded the ball in without any significant challenge. And the keeper should have claimed it before it got anywhere near him. Whatmough barely celebrated, he looked a bit embarrassed that he’d scored so easily.  

2-0 – Sorensen put in a good cross, Castledine chested it down in the box and was bundled over and a penalty was deservedly awarded. You could argue that Castledine went down a bit easily but there was significant contact, so his “selling” the penalty to the ref didn’t alter the decision. Harness coolly converted the pen, looking like he waited to see which way the keeper went and rolled it the other way.

2-1 – Against the run of play, Newcastle floated in a corner which went too deep but Sorensen headed it right to the waiting Newcastle U21 on the edge of the box. He vollied the ball into a crowded box and a wicked deflection meant Nicholls was going the wrong way and the ball bounced into the net.

3-1 – Harness dinked a ball into the channel to pick out Joe Taylor’s clever run into space. He then squared the ball, Ruben Roosken made an excellent dummy run to take out their defenders, leaving Leo Castledine a simple finish from close range. 

4-1 – A sloppy backpass didn’t make it to the keeper because Joe Taylor was lurking, massively offside but it’s not a problem when the opposition feed you great balls. Taylor then stroked it past the onrushing keeper like he wasn’t even there. Taylor’s laughter after he scored seemed a bit cruel but I’m not entirely against it.

5-1 –  Newcastle United U21s looked a bit leggy at this stage and struggled to keep up with Castledine’s forward run, he laid it off to Taylor who picked the ball up on the edge of the box. Taylor faked to shoot with his right but let it roll across his body and had a simple finish on his left. 

6-1 – Castledine was in a good position again, crossing from wide and the defender at the near post cleared it straight into his own net. 

6-2 – Some good attacking play sets their attacker free down the channel. Kasumu does well to keep track of him and block his path to goal. Sadly, Jay Sway didn’t spot the run of the goalscorer, who ran to the near post and emphatically finished. A good goal to score but a disappointing one to concede.

Should we be playing youth teams?

Despite Under 21 teams being allowed into this tournament since 2016, there is still a debate about whether it’s right or not. It’s only the second time Town have played in this iteration of the EFL Trophy, so it’s more of a novelty for us than it is for teams used to being in the bottom two leagues (such as Bradford). 

I can understand why it’s good for Premier League clubs’ academies to get their youngsters experience against League One and Two opposition. But for the professional clubs and their fans, there’s less reason to want these games to exist. 

I’ve debated with myself whether to be a bit more generously spirited towards the young lads from Newcastle, as it wasn’t their fault they’d been put into a game against a team so much better than them. And Lee Grant’s strong selection certainly emphasised the gulf between the two teams. But it would be odd to write about this game and not point out the disparity between the two teams, though I have been careful not to single out individuals from their team for criticism as that d And if anyone thinks it’s unkind to subject these young lads to such scrutiny, then maybe that’s an argument for them not to be competing in this competition.

Most of the better Premier League teams’ youth players are loaned out for the season already, so these U21 teams typically feature players that are below that level. The likes of Leo Castledine, Josh Feeney and Will Alves have all that bit further along with their development and that’s why they’ve come to us to take that next step up. With a few exceptions, Newcastle’s Under 21 team looked a long way off being able to compete with a professional men’s team. 

These games at least prove that there’s no place for youth teams in the league set up. So we shouldn’t have the kind of system they have in Spain and Germany where big teams have a second team that’s allowed to compete in the lower leagues (but not ever in the same league as the main club). So I’m not that keen on youth teams competing in competitive cup competitions but at least their presence helps to put to bed any possible discussion about allowing them into the league properly. 

Any other business

A very low attendance – This game was watched by 1280 fans in the stadium, which gave it a bit of a lockdown football feel to it. Those die-hards were treated to 8 goals but the stands weren’t exactly rocking. In fact, the lack of atmosphere acts as a good illustration of why the Giants want to find a more cozy stadium for their fans. I was a bit surprised by how few fans there were in the Newcastle end, after reports before the game that they’d sold out their allocation and had opened up pay on the day for travelling fans. The number of tickets allocated had to be less than a hundred for them to have sold out. If you then deduct the friends and family of the players, there can’t have been more than a handful of unrelated Newcastle fans that turned up.

The hair cuts –  This isn’t a criticism of Newcastle United’s U21s, it’s more a remark about 18-21 year old men in general. What is going on with their haircuts? Have they all lost bets? Got into fights with a barber halfway through a trim? Had an unfortunate accident when cutting back a hedge? Town’s team also have their fair share of dodgy hair cuts. I remember old men complaining about young men’s haircuts when I was that age, so it’s definitely more of a problem for me than it is for them. 

Joe Taylor’s socks – I’ve written previously about the shortness of some players’ socks, but Joe Taylor’s current ones seem to be pushing the physical limits of how short they can be and are still called football socks. It seems to be the trend these days to wear different socks and only wear the top section of the official kit’s socks. But Taylor has cut so much of his socks up now that there’s barely any of them on show above his non-official white socks he wears in his boots. And if this is the most pressing thing I’ve got to complain about, things must be going pretty well at Town at the moment!

Jordan Rhodes retires – After a long and prolific career which involved two spells and 97 goals at Town, Jordan Rhodes officially hung up his boots on Wednesday. I’d like to pay tribute to a classy striker and a classy person who produced some truly memorable moments while he was at Town. And, after all these years, I’d also like to ask again where has the Rhodes money gone? (This is a call back to repeated claims that we didn’t reinvest the transfer fee we received for Rhodes in his first spell, despite Dean Hoyle personally funding millions in losses every year at that point.)