United boss Greg Abbott (GA) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria'sJames Phillips (JP) at Friday's open press conference for the local media, Abbott first talking about the emergence of the Blues's teenage players this season:
GA
There are lots of positives from where the young players have come from this season. Starting with the ones we have got in the team and then the ones behind them obviously are doing alright. But, it is not always results based, we have to make that clear, sometimes you can get results but it is development and getting them through into the industry and getting them playing regular first team football and getting professional contracts.
But, it is always a sign if you are winning games that you are on the right lines, so credit goes to Eric Kinder for what he has achieved with the ones in the first team, and then the ones behind it are doing ever so well as well.
JP
And just not so much on intrinsically how they have done this season, but how do you appraise the people that you brought through from last year and their performance in general, the young lads who have come through into your first team squad?
GA
I think they have done ever so well, they have done exactly what we said they would do. They have had good, bad and indifferent periods, they have done exactly what we sort of told you at the start of the season. There is a general that they are all going to have really good periods, they are going to have periods when they struggle and then they are going to have periods where they are just OK.
I think everybody would probably agree that all four or five even have had really strong points and all have had the others. But, overall I don’t think they as a group would have thought they between them would have had the amount of first team time on the pitch that they have had. So, that part of it is a roaring success.
JP
The one player in that batch who has struggled to quite break through was perhaps exemplifying what you are just saying, the one who I think a lot of people were most excited about in Josh Todd. Is that what can happen and is there still that opportunity for him to do that longer term?
GA
Of course there is, there is always opportunity, Josh is 19 years old so there is always massive opportunities for Josh whether it is here or somewhere else to prove he can be a professional footballer. That is the key, I will tell you know that there has been so many players, David Platt was released by the way, Denis Irwin had been released, I am going back a few years, but they came back and both played for their countries, Denis nearly a 100 times and David nearly a 100 and I think he was fourth of fifth record scorer for England.
So, we can certainly turn manager’s decisions on their head and that is if that is what the young players are told. If it is a negative then they have to go away and prove that the manager was wrong or that particular club was wrong, or maybe it was a time where maybe they needed to do things different themselves as individuals. You can’t just apportion blame to anybody, but like I said, we are just interested in trying to make the right decisions.
JP
And just finally on this, I am just interested in your thoughts in general, at a time when clubs are struggling to make money up and down the land how important is it that clubs like Carlisle do generate their own young players and I guess sadly one day probably have to sell them?
GA
It is not something and not a reason we get players in for is to sell them. But, that becomes as part of the situation, and it is part of probably Championship, League One and League Two and the Conference, if you get young players in that are exciting and quality then they get sold to the bigger clubs. That has been going on for 150 years in football and will always go on. So, it is always helps financially but it doesn’t help me as a manager who wants the best possible team he can get.
I keep cribbing that I have probably sold a team of players in the last five years that would have won this league by the end of March hands down easy out of sight, and I have not been able to replace it really because of the finances involved and the quality out there that is to go and look for. But, again, everything evolves and we are evolving again and we are going to go to try to find that quality again to create that team to go on and be successful or certainly challenging at the right part of this division.