Surely those best placed to judge whether a kid is good enough is their coaching staff. AWB had already been earmarked given Wilf's comments that he found him the hardest to go up against 1 v 1 in training. That in itself said the he had something special.
If they were even borderline good enough I would be delighted to see them gain valuable experience from the bench.
So either we have a coaching staff that aren't very good, have terrible judgement a bit of both, or youth players that just aren't good enough to be blooded at this level.
I had hoped Kirby might make it but he seems further away from the 1st team than ever.

This post has been merged from a topic called 'Squad Age' by bexleydave

I know we have the oldest manager and we must have one of the oldest squads. In our latest game the starting team had an average age of 29 years 3 months. The 25 man squads average age is about 28 years. I know experience is vital, but in two years time, without the introduction of younger players, our style of play will mean we will have a team of 30 year olds trying to close down the teams like Man City etc. We really need to get some younger players from our academy playing some games, otherwise we will need plenty of transfer money to rejuvenate the team.

If we have 38 points by May 17th we will probably be safe

We need a properly managed programme for loaning out our U23's with promise. Notwithstanding AWB, the step up for most is too great.

Good to see Southampton joining the relegation favourites after their 9-0 hammering. Now second favourite around 15/8. But surprisingly Palace are still showing as seventh favourite around 7/1 - despite where we are in the table!

The right place at the right time