Meanwhile, In The Reserves: Bradden Inman Banging The Goals In For Newcastle Reserves

Although it is slightly saddening to have a long break already with the Premier League season just having started, it comes at an undeniably awesome time for Newcastle, who are nursing injuries to James Perch, Danny Simpson, Cheik Tiote, Shola Ameobi, Sammy Ameobi and Ryan Taylor (who wont be back by the end of this break, but still...). In the meantime, the Reserves are playing on, and Bradden Inman continues to bang in the goals, scoring 4 goals in the first two matches of their under-21 Premier League season.

Bradden Inman - who also scored in the 6-4 opening day success against Tottenham - led the way with a hat-trick while Marcus Maddison and JJ Hooper were also on target against the Potters, whose reply came from a trialist.

As you may recall, Newcastle went through a very large-scale purge of their Reserves ranks in January, and they are turning the reigns over to the youth (Academy graduates and newly-aquired) with tremendous results thus far. In their most recent match v. Stoke City Reserves, their oldest player was 20 years old. It looks as though the Reserves this year are going to be used primarily to blood the youngsters in the Newcastle system (Adam Campbell made his European debut on the heels of a Reserves hat-trick v. Spurs Reserves), which seems like a great strategy with the health of the senior squad of paramount concern with the club in the group stage of the Europa League and the Capitol One Cup (or at least the one round we'll be involved in this year) looming as well.