Steero113 Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 (edited) Watching the U23's against Burnley in PL2. We have fielded some lineup; interesting watch Edited November 22, 2021 by Steero113 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 23, 2021 Share Posted November 23, 2021 U17s play Wolves tomorrow in their final group game of the U17 Premier League Cup, small heath and West Brom have played all three of their games, small heath top of the table on six points, they played an older team in the first game against our U16s which will have helped them. We can still qualify but would have to win by four goals. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted November 24, 2021 Moderator Share Posted November 24, 2021 FA Youth Cup 3rd Round is confirmed for (I presume) Villa Park on 7th December. It'll be a good chance to get a crowd in to see the youngsters and hopefully we can do well against Leicester in defence of our cup win last season. Not quite sure how it'll work in relation to the U23's derby on the 6th December as I think there will be a fair bit of crossover - I'd like to see the likes of Feeney, Ealing, Swinkels, Bogarde and co involved in this one - but I don't think they can play twice in two days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 I think as with last season the FA Youth Cup will take precedent over the PL2 and the better players that are eligible to play will be kept back for the Leicester cup tie. The players from the U23s that are eligible are mostly defenders, like Swinkels, Bogarde, Ealing, Feeney, and you could say Patterson as well, being as though he's been playing left-back recently, so the U23s will probably have to field a weaker defence, but they will still have pretty much the same midfielders and attackers available. Another thing that might confuse matters is the England U17s have some games coming up, the last one being against Portugal on December 6th, so potential for Feeney and Patterson not being available, although they do sometimes have squads where it's more of B team, so hopefully that's the case, if not then hopefully they'd allow Feeney and Patterson to come home early, same for any of players that might get into the B squad if that's what is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted November 24, 2021 Moderator Share Posted November 24, 2021 10 minutes ago, useless said: I think as with last season the FA Youth Cup will take precedent over the PL2 and the better players that are eligible to play will be kept back for the Leicester cup tie. The players from the U23s that are eligible are mostly defenders, like Swinkels, Bogarde, Ealing, Feeney, and you could say Patterson as well, being as though he's been playing left-back recently, so the U23s will probably have to field a weaker defence, but they will still have pretty much the same midfielders and attackers available. Another thing that might confuse matters is the England U17s have some games coming up, the last one being against Portugal on December 6th, so potential for Feeney and Patterson not being available, although they do sometimes have squads where it's more of B team, so hopefully that's the case, if not then hopefully they'd allow Feeney and Patterson to come home early, same for any of players that might get into the B squad if that's what is. With our U23 back four being largely an U18 group, I'd have to say that outside of Patterson, I'm not sure who we'd play in the derby - maybe Softley and O' Reilly from the U18's might play along with Patterson against small heath? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 (edited) Against small heath if they're fit we might see the likes of Appiah, and Zito in defence, Lindley can also play in the back four if need be, and unless Bogarde is going to play in midfield against Leicester then that means that only one of Feeney or Swinkels will be able to play alongside him, presumably Feeney, so that might free up Swinkels to be kept back for the U23s, as I'd imagine if he's available Patterson would be more likely to play left-back in a U18 game, or even Ealing with Barber at right-back. Also last season it wasn't uncommon for some of our players to play on Friday night for the U23s and then play the next day for the U18s in a midday kick-off, Brad Young in particular did that quite a few times. So we might possibly see something like that again, with some playing partial role in both games. Either way I think we can afford to play a makeshift defence against small heath as I'd still back us to outscore them as we'd still have the likes of Frith, Thorndike, Caleb Chukwuemeka available and with the game being on a Monday, any of the likes of Carney Chukwuemeka, Archer, Philogene-Bidace that don't play against for the first team against Leicester on the Sunday could also potentially be available as well. Edited November 24, 2021 by useless Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted November 24, 2021 Moderator Share Posted November 24, 2021 36 minutes ago, useless said: Against small heath if they're fit we might see the likes of Appiah, and Zito in defence. I must admit I thought they'd both gone. I'm sure I read something about Zito playing for Stoke a couple of weeks back. It's interesting this year, last season it was pretty clear we had an U18 side that were capable of winning the FA Cup, prioritising that competition was absolutely the right thing to do. This season's group aren't as good in my opinion and I wonder if they might lean a little more the other way and focus on putting the better players into a promotion push in PL2. Hopefully it's a problem we have again in the season - especially if we get to the point where we have U18, FA Youth Cup, PL2 and Papa John's Trophy games coming thick and fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 Zito had a trial for Stoke, but he's since returned and played for us, Appiah has been injured, so with him will depend on whether he's back from injury or not. Our FA Youth Cup team won't be as strong this season as last season's but I think they will still want to give it a go, play the best eligible team and the defence will be pretty strong, basically our U23 defence, and in attack the likes of Sewell, Afoka, Reddin and Burchall have been doing pretty well in the U18 league and will be coming up against a similar levels of opposition in the Cup. It's a shame that we were given such a difficult fixture in the first round, all the other big academies have been given relatively easy ties, but I think it's still a winnable game as once you put better defenders in the U18 team they should become a different proposition. If we lose against Leicester then that's that we're out of the competition. Whereas if we drop points against small heath then we can still challenge for promotion, bearing in mind that automatic already looks very difficult so if they're to do it it's likely going to have to be via the play-offs, we still should be able to beat them anyway, we've got the attacking talent to compensate for a weakened defence. To be honest I'm not even sure how much of a priority promotion is anyway, I don't think there's much of a difference in quality between divison one and two, as it's not like first team football where all the best teams play in the highest division, at academy level the fact that some clubs play much older players and some go with younger players, and there's less emphasis on results and more on individual talent means that it gets distorted, so some of the better academies are in division two and some of the not so good ones are in division one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 Like I'm sure we'd like to be promoted and that will be the aim for the U23s in the league, but what's best for individual players will come first, so say for example if a good loan opportunity comes up for any of them in January and that's seen as the best option for their development then we will let them go even if it's detrimental to our chances in the league. We will probably also see some of the U18s introduced more into the U23s as the season goes on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 (edited) U15s drew 2-2 with Leicester in the Floodlit Cup, that means we've taken seven points from small heath, West Brom and Leicester, and are apparently top of the group, whether that means we qualify for the knockout stages, or whether we have to play everyone again I'm not sure. Edited November 24, 2021 by useless 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 25, 2021 Share Posted November 25, 2021 On 23/11/2021 at 20:32, useless said: U17s play Wolves tomorrow in their final group game of the U17 Premier League Cup, small heath and West Brom have played all three of their games, small heath top of the table on six points, they played an older team in the first game against our U16s which will have helped them. We can still qualify but would have to win by four goals. Finished 2-2. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 25, 2021 Share Posted November 25, 2021 5 hours ago, useless said: Finished 2-2. Our team from the game has been posted on the Wolves website: Wright, Barber, Munroe, Allock, Rhodes, Pavey, Softley, Pierce, Young, Lutz, Barnes. Subs: Hammond, Mitchell, Onchukovla, McDowell. I'm guessing that Allock, Rhodes, and Pierce are probably errors and should be Alcock, Rhoades, and Pierre... I don't recognise the name but I think 'Onchukovla' might be a spelling error as well, just because if you google it the only result is a link to the Wolves report, he and McDowell are the new names to me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Villaphan04 Posted November 25, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted November 25, 2021 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaVilla Posted November 25, 2021 Share Posted November 25, 2021 3 hours ago, Villaphan04 said: cant really find any info about this guy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 25, 2021 Share Posted November 25, 2021 I think he's only recently turned sixteen and as such there won't be much information about on him other than what position he plays. Probably fair to say he must have been doing something right for us to be prepared to pay a six figure sum for him. Doesn't surprise me that we've gone for another central defender, as we've been really struggling in that area at U18 level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted November 26, 2021 Moderator Share Posted November 26, 2021 The Brum Mail reporting it in their classic style. One line repeating the headline. One line telling you the Athletic are reporting it. One line telling you where he currently plays, and then a whole article on who's already at the club Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted November 26, 2021 Share Posted November 26, 2021 20 hours ago, MaVilla said: cant really find any info about this guy? Gregg Evans? He is rumoured to be a journalist 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaVilla Posted November 26, 2021 Share Posted November 26, 2021 Aston Villa is delighted to announce the signing of Thierry Katsukunya. The defender, 16, joins Villa’s Academy from midlands neighbours Coventry City having been with the Sky Blues since 2014. https://www.avfc.co.uk/news/2021/november/26/katsukunya-joins-villa-academy/ 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted November 26, 2021 Share Posted November 26, 2021 We've got a lot of central defenders in our academy system at the moment if you include the players out on loan, Katsukunya, Softley, Feeney, Bogarde, Swinkels, Aaron O'Reilly, Appiah, Zito, Sohna, Dominic Revan, Mungo Bridge, Triston Rowe coming through as well. Although we're short at U18 level, so can see why Katsukunya has been brought in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted November 26, 2021 Share Posted November 26, 2021 43 minutes ago, useless said: We've got a lot of central defenders in our academy system at the moment if you include the players out on loan, Katsukunya, Softley, Feeney, Bogarde, Swinkels, Aaron O'Reilly, Appiah, Zito, Sohna, Dominic Revan, Mungo Bridge, Triston Rowe coming through as well. Although we're short at U18 level, so can see why Katsukunya has been brought in. TBF Bridge and Revan have basically already left haven't they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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