Not sure what exactly you are expecting to be announced in terms of B team. It’s more a philosophical thing based on how long we retain youngsters for than a procedural thing: games for both are essentially ad hoc friendlies. I suppose one consequence could be we may not enter the Premier League Cup but we played 6 matches in it last season (in contrast we played over 20 friendlies) and 4 the season before so I doubt anyone would really notice.
The biggest change as far as I can tell is that players promoted from the academy will train with the first team rather than separately and we’ll give youngsters less time to come good with a more up or out approach. They’ve already announced that they’ve released nearly all the u23 squad with only Benton and Andeng Ndi retained. Davis and Coker have been promoted from the academy: they’ll now train with the firsts rather than going into the u23s but as both were on the bench tail end of the season I presume they were already training some of the time with the firsts and I’d expect them to go out on loan anyway.
U23 fixtures were always supplemented with players from the academy and I expect that will continue with the B team model.
The official website will probably remove profiles of u23 players sometime in 2024.
What still hasn’t been announced is what is happening with the Academy. A replacement for Ricky Duncan still hasn’t been officially announced. We don’t know if second year scholars are to be given third years: this was almost automatic in the past but we may weed more out sooner. I think I’d heard Adedoja had moved/was moving on.
@Exiled Shrimper, the oracle of all things Southend youth, said Luke Reeve had a third year.
The class of first year scholars hasn’t been announced either as you say. Maybe they’ll be introduced during an early home game? I always liked it when they did that (I don’t get why they don’t do that for each age group and give them a game where they can go onto the pitch at half time and wave to the crowd?) as it helped establish that link between the firsts and the academy.