It has been a controversial move for Premier League U23 sides to be allowed to enter the Checkatrade trophy, but Saints are one club that have welcomed it.
There are those that are not keen on Academy sides competing against League One & Two sides in the Checkatrade Trophy, I have to say I am not one of them and neither is Saints technical director Martin Hunter.
Saints fans have good memories of the clubs participation in the then Johnstones Paint Trophy in 2009/10 culminating in a great day out at Wembley, but few of those present even attended our next game in the competition the following season let alone actually remember that it was Swindon that knocked us out exactly six years ago tomorrow.
The Wiltshire side won 3-0 with two goals from Ex Pompey player Vincent Pericard who also played for us on loan in 2007/08 and the third from current Saints striker Charlie Austin who has also scored for QPR at St Mary's but not Saints (Yet)
The early rounds of this competition are played before sparse crowds and the competition rarely hots up before the regional group final, that is why I am in favour of academy sides adding a little bit of interest to the competition, surely a club like Accrington for instance would get a far bigger crowd than the 1,344 that saw them play Bury in last years competition if they were to have met say Manchester United's academy side in this years.
For the smaller sides it could bring in extra revenus into the coffers and that could be the difference between a club staring in the face at Administration or surviving comfortably.
Sadly some of the big clubs do not see it that way and do not want to help out smaller sides in this way, happily though Saints do, although perhaps their motives are not just about being charitable to fellow professional clubs as Saints Technical Director Martin Hunter has explained on the Club's You Tube channel.
"The experiences that the club’s young players will take from the competition shouldn’t be underestimated, It’s against mature first team players, there’ll be a crowd there and they’re learning,”
"It’s part of their development which is very, very important. It will be a much more physical game I’m sure and their decision-making will need to be spot-on, otherwise we’ll get exploited, but that’s part and parcel of their development.”
The revised Football League Trophy competition sees 16 Category One Academies join the 48 clubs from Leagues 1 and 2 in the tournament, but this was not universally welcomed by some of the teams invited to take part. Hunter affirmed that’s not the case with Saints, who elected to join in.
"There are massive benefits for our players for reasons I’ve explained, but there are many positives. Some other clubs see it as a negative, but we’re just looking forward to it,”
"We’ve got two away games and one at St Mary’s so for us, it’s positive all-round for us.”
However one drawback is that the game at Charlton this evening comes only 48 hours after the U23's defeat against Sunderland at the weekend.
"We’ll prepare the same way, the recovery strategy will be vital, so when we finish the game, we’ll start recovering while we’re up there, then fly back down and still be in a recovery process on the Monday to get ready to go into the Tuesday.
"That’s all part and parcel of whether they’re going to be players at this club and play in Europe where the turnaround of the games come thick and fast. That is a great learning process.”
So Saints see this as a positive move in the development of their youngsters and now it only needs a few more of the top sides to look at it in the same way and perhaps some of the lower league clubs to see the benefits it will bring them, not least the financial ones.