Chester 2-1 Villa Youngsters

Some good perfermances: Stephenson (according to the team sheet at the ground not above?) loooked good, Philipe showed some good touches and Devine was generally solid. Well taken goal from Drennan on half time and some good saves from Barrett who was also replaced just before the end. Grealish showed considerable skill at times but also a poor arrogant attitude at times as did some of his team mates. Disappointed to see that attitude from some of our kids who need to understand that they have to deserve the right to think that they better than teams like this. Must also say I was disappointed with Sid, seemed to make few comments leaving most of the directing to Sean Verity. Good to see Paul Faulkner there, whi did not seem downhearted with the result at all.

Would I be right in assuming the lads are NOT playing against teams of the same age group, but teams of mixed ages?

Pride: Chester were a mixed age team. Kentvillan: Steven Davis? - but I take your point, the Gabby would be sold for more if sold, Weimann too probably, ditto Clark so its a difficult point to prove.

I don't think we got more than 3.5m for cahill sadly. Vassell too, but we've never had a truly great development.

Men against boys really, a lot are the new crop coming out of the Academy into the second string for the first time this season, and they are playing mixed age squads who know the ropes so it's a great test for them, even if the results aren't going our way at the moment.

Quite a few have moved for decent money mate, the myth we don't produce is wrong, because we've never had a Rooney/Bale/Walcott etc get poached. Our mistake in general has been offloading youngsters too early from the first team when they didn't suit a manager, ie Moore, Ridgewell, Cahill (although he was slightly different), so we've never really had top dollar for them when they move. We've also reasonably decent in letting players go when they won't figure for us (Connor Taylor recently who knows where the net is) and we help them find new clubs to continue - so we could probably do with being a bit more selfish in that respect.

Getting back to the point though, certainly nothing to worry about at this stage. Last season we didn't have the best of starts as the 'new' second string got used to each other and we still took the league lol