Gbamin: I was confident I could make full recovery

My slight concern is that we actually need a complete refresh in midfield, and I highly doubt that we'd be signing Gbamin right now if he wasn't already on the pay roll. Gomes struggles after his injury, Delph is a sicknote, James seems to be able to play about one in three games for around 70 minutes before asking to come off, and Allan has missed a fair amount through injury too.

Fingers crossed for Gbamin but is there any reason to suspect that he'll be any good?

I just hope and pray that JPG stays fit and available till the end of the campaign, and gets a chance to put his claims to the acid test, but there's bound to be someone who says before too long what did we buy him for?

He should know that we are all behind him and willing him to do well. I think we may need a bit of patience though because I can't see this reintroduction to Premier League football going totally to plan.

Anyone see who Chelski brought on as subs last night - Kante and Thiago Silva !! We have so far to go its untrue.

And if he really does still have the pace to be a Prem player, it'll be a wonderful miracle -- and one for the medical books.

Go on, son. Do it.

The first tiny steps back after a very long bumpy agonising journey to get there, I hope those tiny steps the other night expand into many galloping games for the Blues, best wishes mate and a long injury free few years to go with them.

The rot started in 1999 on the day the Central League in the north and The Football Combination in the south were replaced by the FA Premier Reserve League.

The so-called Reserves finally disappeared in 2011, to be replaced by the age-defined Professional Development League, the Under-21 Premier League becoming Premier League 2 in 2016, with the age limit increasing to Under-23s.

I think it's fair to say that first-team players simply do not play for the Under-23s. We were even told last month that senior players commonly have that written into their contracts. So a progressive reintroduction to the first team through sub cameos has become the norm.

I think the last senior player to recuperate in the U23s (not counting Oumar Niasse) was James McCarthy, 2 years ago. Yet think of the countless injured senior players who have needed to reacquire match fitness after injury since then – and not one has done it in the U23s.

I was sure Seamus Coleman had a game with them before coming back from his broken leg... but I can't confirm that. But I would class both McCarthy and Coleman as 'old school' in this regard — It really is a thing of the past.

But then agian, the slew of knowledgable academy bashers on here say the U23 games are just training exercises anyway and provide nothing by way of preparation for the big time.

When I had a season ticket donkey's years ago, it enabled free access to all Central League games at Goodison. The standard of those games looked fantastic preparation for any young player developing for the first team, for any first team players coming back from injury, and for any first team players who don't feature regularly in the first team to keep themselves match fit and ticking over.

I thought it weird too. Aside from the quality debate, surely just playing a full 90 minutes for the u23 a few times would get him back into a routine. Also assuming the first team have 11 a side training sessions, I don't imagine they're full blooded with the risk of injuring team mates.

I didn't care for the old reserve set up and nor do I for the current Under 23s. Both were about as non-productive as each other in my opinion.

I've always been interested in exploring the B Team concept as is applied in Spain. I think Martinez once spoke of trying to promote the idea in the English league. Players getting competitive league football but with their own club, so negating or at least reducing the tendency to use the loan system, which I know many here are not fans of either.

The most obvious youth player to have tried instead is Onyango but he's just suffered a very serious injury. Price and Warrington also look talented but are still feeling their way into the u23s so makes sense for Gbamin to be ahead in the pecking order.

For any dead rubbers in the final games of the season might be nice to see Nkounkou, Small and Warrington get some minutes (Price needs a few big dinners over summer first, I think!) over Delph for example.

Whether it was right to bring Gbamin on with the match in the balance is another point, I guess.

I guess the U23s just isn't proving itself to be the preparing ground it should be either for young potential or those coming back from injury. I assume the conditions aren't right for what is needed for first team football.

Goes back to what a lot of us believe; not fit for purpose and a flawed concept.

And then I'll still end up watching Everton, having been to a beer garden, and promise to do it on Tuesday.

Recent signings in midfield - Gbamin, Allan, Doucoure, Gomes, Delph etc - all seem to be keeping nursey busy in the sick bay. We should sign two players for every one we need, based on the number of crocks we end up with.

We should've wrapped the lad in cotton wool and taken a financial hit in the summer. No chance now.