Naivety and stupidity would let Andrew Taylor believe he’ll have Joe Gelhardt, Crysencio Summerville and the rest with Leeds United’s under-23s on Friday night, but he’s badly lacking in those traits. Their absence from the crunch match at Elland Road would still be a big success in Taylor’s book, even if it did weaken his own side.
More than 16,000 tickets had been sold as of Tuesday night for the Premier League 2 match with Manchester City, but with 72 hours between then and kick-off there are big hopes United will break the division’s attendance record. Leeds will have home advantage, a cracking atmosphere, a desperate need for three points and the best opposition in the country, but they are likely to be under strength.
Three days later, Jesse Marsch’s first-team unit will be at Crystal Palace and preparing for their first match in 16 days. A win in Croydon would all but guarantee safety from relegation and Taylor is fully aware there’s little chance risks will be taken with the talents the American needs.
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He said: “The reality is 23s are important, first team’s the pinnacle, that's the top, so I'm not naïve enough and stupid enough to think ‘Oh yeah, we're gonna get everybody, why not?’ We might, but if the manager and the staff feel certain players are needed to be ready for Monday [they won’t be available to us].
“Again, from a selfish point of view [he sighs], but really that's a success because that means the players who are not playing for us on Friday have got a hell of a chance of either starting or being involved on the Monday in the Premier League in a really big game for the first team.
“Let's be honest about it. So we don't know the full squad yet. We'll know by the end of today (Wednesday) and then we'll just adapt.”
Reaching the first team is exactly what the likes of Gelhardt and Summerville were brought to the club to do. Their inclusion at the top, and omission from the under-23s, will be considered a transfer strategy success.
Adaptation is what under-23 coaches do best. No day seems to be the same. Their training groups change by the week with first-team demands constantly in flux.
Those adjustments would play havoc with the match preparation of a more rigid coach. Taylor, like his predecessors Mark Jackson and Carlos Corberan, must train for games against the best youth players in Europe without the names he could ultimately have available at kick-off.
Charlie Cresswell, Gelhardt, Summerville and Sam Greenwood are the best examples of players who flit between under-23 and senior units. Taylor admits it’s a challenge, but feels the uniformity of Marsch’s tactical approach throughout the club helps.
“It's a challenge, I can’t lie with that, because the model we have is the first team and a lot of the 23s are involved in that first-team squad on a daily basis,” he said. “Then they might bob down into us for the games.
“It means we necessarily don't have what you would normally have in a normal week, of a full week being able to prepare the team in a certain way to play against whoever the opposition is for that game, but that's part and parcel of football.
“The good thing about the way we want to do things is the game model from the first team right down is the same. We're not trying to do anything different.
“So that, yes, all right, Cressy (Cresswell) won't be with us all week until the game, but the messages are the same. So all right, he's not necessarily training with me and Puj (Michal Pujdak) and Al (Alessandro Barcherini), he’s with the first team, but it's the same model, it's the same ideas, so nothing changes when he does come with us.
“The messages are the same. We try to use the same terminology. It's the same tactics broadly, yes, there's little elements in there we can change, but the messages are clear throughout.”
