Intervju med Nick Marshall
Forest redaktionen tar ett snack om Youth Academy...
Hi Chris and Kenneth,
Thanks for the e-mail. I hope you are all keeping well. To answer your questions....
1) Your comments regarding last season, you must be quite happy with the team and the season?
Overall we had a very productive season which I am pretty happy with. We were very disappointed not to win the League and been only 3 minutes away from doing so made it even more disappointing. However, having given it some thought I guess we have to accept that the second half of the season we were playing with a team with injuries to key players (James Reid, Matt Thornhill) and with players either having moved up to the first team squad (Lewis McGugan, Brendan Moloney, Hamza Bencherif, Alan Power) out on loan (Paddy Gamble) and thus unavailable or playing in the reserves (all the Academy players!) and therefore having to play 2 games a week. Given that the League was won by Sunderland who didn't have any of the above happen to them and don't run a reserve team and so could pick their best players week in week out I guess we didn't do that badly!
Of course the most important thing is to develop 1st players and so I guess the emergence of the players mentioned above, and particularly Lewis meant a pretty good season.
2) What impressed you the most?
The way Lewis has handled himself this season. His attitude has been excellent and he seems to have handled the step up to the first team in his stride.
The improvement many of our Academy fringe players have made. I really do see some of them, like Moloney having an impact on the first team next season.
3) What’s your thoughts about next season?
It's going to be very tough. We have a reasonable set of players moving into the Academy but we are also running a very young reserve team. I think this will impact on our results at youth level which probably won't be as good this season. More importantly though more young players will be able to play in a settled reserve team which will have regular training so there is a great opportunity for some of our older players to really push on.
4) Any of the youth players you think will take the next step soon and move up to the first team? We have heard good things about Moloney for example.
As always I don't like to give out too many expectations for the players but I think it's fair to say that Brendan has a great chance of impressing next year. Other than him I see maybe a couple more players have an impact on the first team scene.
5) Any news regarding the Academy for next season?
Not really, we are going to be operating in the same way at the same budget and the only change I see might be a change to our youth team coach as I see John Pemberton being offered the reserve team job.
6) How about the first team, after this seasons disappointing ending. What do you think of the chances of promotion next season?
With the right players being brought into the club to replace those who have left I am very confident about our chances next season.
Regards
Nick
