Hello everyone, following on from my last blog where I told you all I would keep you updated with how the past few weeks have gone, here goes!
First of all, the midweek friendly game at St George’s Park (England’s new training base) against Nottingham Forest finished in a 1-0 victory for the lads that needed minutes under their belt coming back from injury, which was a big positive.
However, talking about the new training base, I must say I have never been to a facility like it; the place was unreal with every resource a footballer could ask for!
The lads that played in the game then came in for a cool down session the next day, whilst the other lads were going through the training they needed for the game against Coventry on Saturday!
All of the lads were back together training on Thursday/Friday preparing for the weekend fixture, however the game ended in a 2-1 defeat against Coventry.
On a personal note, I was finally back in contention for the friendly against Brighton on Saturday just gone, which I was very pleased about. I was hoping to get a full 90 minutes under my belt which did happen and I also got myself on the score sheet too.
The game ended up 4-2 to Brighton, but we dominated for long periods of the game. We played many youngsters which could be looked at as a positive, and they can definitely learn from the experience of jumping from under 16’s football to under 18’s and what the demands are when you take that jump.
The lads are getting very excited as the FA Youth Cup is fast approaching! We have got a league fixture against Barnsley at the weekend followed by a friendly against Blackburn next Friday, with the Youth Cup game following on Monday the 10th of December.
So all of the lads will be training together which has happened very rarely this season, and hope to start gelling again looking for a good few performance over the next two weeks. Anything can happen in the cup and what a first round draw we have got against local rivals West Brom.
The Youth Cup has already seen Premier League side Newcastle knocked out this week by Arsenal and I’m sure there are plenty of more surprises to come!
I will keep you all updated with how the next two weeks go with another blog soon and I hope it is very good news about us going into the next round of the cup. All the best, Charlee.