Boss Paul Jewell says he’s looking at ways of improving Town’s reserve football. Successive Blues managers have been unhappy with life in the Totesport.com Football Combination East Division, which this season includes only seven teams.
Jewell, who has previously said the games against second strings from the likes of Luton, Stevenage, Southend and Oxford don’t give his developing youngsters enough of a test, is considering making changes to the current arrangements: "It’s something I’m looking at because in the reserve league the games come when you don’t need them and then when you want players to have a game there are no reserve games for a month so you end up organising [a friendly].
"We’re looking at it. Nothing’s been set in stone yet, but we’re looking at the reserve situation and seeing if we can improve it to our benefit.”
One of Jewell’s previous clubs withdrew from their reserves league and played only friendlies but Jewell says the geographical situation isn’t quite the same at Town: "We only played friendlies at Derby and a lot of teams do that now. At Derby there are so many teams on their doorstep, but it’s a bit different here.”
The Blues manager says he missed most of Tuesday’s 2-1 reserves victory over Norwich, who withdrew from the league last summer, because he had to leave for his scouting trip to Pride Park: "I only saw half an hour because I had to go to Derby!”
Chris Kiwomya’s reserves side currently top the Totesport.com Football Combination East Division on goal difference from Oxford United.