What's the Plan "B" ?

[Professor]

Despite all the talk about 'playing the kids' that is not what the club are doing. A small number of younger players have come into the first choice 11 but their ages are:

James (20); Gillett (22); Lallana (20); MacGoldrick (20). Not a teenager amongst them.

Schneiderlin is 18, but well experienced, as is Holmes (20) and Surman (22 next week). Alongside these we have Davis (31); Svensson (32); Perry (35) or Davies (23) and John (31). The youngest likely to get a game is Thomson (19). Even reserve GK, Bart, is now 21.

 

This looks like a genuine mix of youth, age and experience, not a gamble on kids. Rasiak and Saga were simply not needed, neither is Skacel so letting them go isn't a fire sale, although it is more than just the selling off of surplus players freed up by rebuilding, because the money is needed, but money doesn't look like the primary motive.