[Dancingwilldoit]

I know the new format idea stinks but to end up with the regionalized groupings and matches they have come up with is just unbelievable.

Cheltenham are in the same group as Blackpool Everton U21 and Bolton.
Cambridge get Middlesbrough U21, Shrewsbury and Scunthorpe


Just who how and why?
Matches will be midweek evening games. I wonder how many fans will even bother turning out. The football league really is a joke.

[Lord Snooty]

And the u21s who this is meant to benefit will be away playing internationals because they're playing these games during the international breaks. You really couldn't make this shit up.

[Devongone]

The regions themselves look fairly geographically challenged. I lived in Cheltenham for 14 years. They are in Northern section whilst Coventry are in the Southern section. When I travelled from Cheltenham to Coventry I was going North East. As I now find out Coventry must be south of Cheltenham I wonder where I was. Maybe Ordnance Survey got it wrong ......

I can see the germ of a good idea in this competition, but somehow football has managed to find effective antibiotics to kill it off at birth. You'd be surprised ........ if you hadn't already seen everything.

[spireitematt]

The whole thing stinks to high heaven. When it fails because its only a matter of when not if it fails then the whole thing will either disband or go back to L1/L2. Instead of putting Premier League and Championship U21s in they should have put the Conference teams that would have been more interesting.

[Devongone]

I reckon as usual the football authorities are way behind the times. They are worried about the opportunities for young players, but they've set young at 21. Premier League sides themselves clearly want young players from 17 upwards to experience competitive matches against players of all ages. That's why there are so many young players of 17, 18 and 19 playing in Divisions One and Two on loan. If the divide had been under 20 at the start of the season I could have seen the point ...... but another year on just encourages development football ad infinitum. A bunch of 17-19 year olds in against a wily set of old pros from Millwall might learn something, but why stretch childhood any further? You just get a crop of infantile failures not good enough for the top and still too immature to make it in Division One.

Take Reece Mitchell - 20, spent seasons at Chelsea, now he's come to us and he's looking at being a fringe player only. Wouldn't you guess he ought to be a potential star for us? Do you think he'd be a better player if he'd have come to us two years ago, become a squad player, getting substitute appearances and maybe more? He's lost two years playing kiddie tik-tak footie "the right way" as failed English coaches are so keen to tell us.