http://southampton.rivals.net
Youth For Mansfield
By Nick Illingsworth
Date: 19/9/2005
At Southend Harry Redknapp gave youth a chance and they repaid him handsomely, with the trip to Mansfield coming smack bang in the middle of a hectic run of games, that looks to be the case again.
Youth will once again be given its chance at Field Mill as Saints look to rest some of the senior players who at present are in a spell of 7 games in 3 weeks.
This is obviously a hard schedule and Harry Redknapp will take the chance to rest some of them and bring in the likes of Dexter Blackstock, Nathan Dyer, Martin Cranie, Theo Walcott and Yauan Folly.
All these are chomping a the bit to play and far from being a problem to have to rely on them its actually a good thing to be able to give them the chance to show what they can do, all are experienced in the first team albeit in minor rolls so far and have the determination to show the boss that they can do well.
Mansfield fans should not feel that we are showing them disrespect from putting out such a young line up, some of these players are going to be truly great and go on to big things, and their are many Saints supporters that feel that some of them should be playing a bigger part than they already have been doing, this is not an act of contempt from a big club to a smaller one, this is genuinely some gifted players who havent been getting a look in, in a big squad getting there chance and hopefully for us, like at Southend, they will take it.
----------------
BBC: www.bbc.co.uk
| Caretaker Mansfield boss Peter Shirtliff will be without centre-half Jon-Olva Hjelde after he was shown the red card against Rochdale on Saturday. Chris Beardsley remains on the casualty list after suffering a broken leg. Southampton boss Harry Redknapp will rest some of his more experienced players for the trip to Mansfield and hand starts to some of his youngsters. Defender Tomasz Hajto will use the game to serve his one-match after being shown a red card at Derby. | ||