Derby County U23 - Fulham U23
Liverpool U23 - Nottingham Forest U23
Aston Villa U23 - Wolverhampton U23
West Bromwich U23 - Brighton U23
Bournemouth U23 - Arsenal U23
Everton U23 - Leicester City U23
Aston Villa vs Wolverhampton Wanderers
We start the season against a side that I was caretaker of last time around and took them to a top five finish. Wolves fans will be hoping new gaffer Ian McNamara can push them even higher this time around
We've made some late changes to the U23s but they won't go through in time so Sam Lewis will play before his loan to Leeds meaning Dan Atherton will be backup for the first team this week before his debut comes in the next game. It also means Emerson may get a run before he is promoted as first team backup. In an interesting twist as well, there is a deal between these two clubs in the pipeline so Wolves Maguire and Brockenhull and Villa's Bondswell and Lavia may be playing for both sides within the week!
Aside from all that there are no fewer than seven other players potentially making debuts this week with James Sweet and new captain Rodrigo Fortes brought in to sure up the back line. Adam Berry and Charlie Patino are the new AMs with massive shoes to fill whilst Charlie Finney is in the squad on loan from Coventry. Another Cov player in Aidan Dausch will likely be involved up front along with Lamin Sillah - the last potential debutant.
Overall we've been pretty pleased with our off season and have a squad capable of retaining the title we took last year. The late addition of Maguire will hopefully be the missing piece of that puzzle.
We know this Wolves side very well as I built it and know they will not be mugs. But, with home advantage hopefully we will have enough to get off to a winning start. We beat them home and away in the league last year and a repeat of that would do nicely
You could not have written this script if you tried, our first game in the dugout is against our caretaker manager from last season Alex Nock as we make the short Journey to Aston Villa. We're still getting use to things here however Alex has been a great help to me in my transition and helping me sort my side out which I am very grateful for. He has been available to answer questions and ensure I have the opportunity to make the most of my players. A lot of our new signings have come from his two teams as well which makes the game even more interesting as four of these players will potentially have played for both sides within a week. This won't be an easy game as Alex is a top manager and has won things everywhere. We however have a fantastic under 21ns roster and we're looking forward to seeing where it can go. As we go through the season please keep an eye on our fanseene wheir we'll talk about players and their potential. It's a tough start for us however I believe our players have the ability needed to make a good go at this devision this season. Alex got us to a 5th place finish last season so we'll be looking to do better or at least consolidate a similar position.
Well Arsenal have had the better of us all season and with the promotion of our main keeper from last season im not expecting to many miracles from this youth side this season, we have a few quality players but as an overall side i think it will be a mid table battle for us. We will see Webster level up in secondaries after this round so he will be a key player and with our 2 16 year old DFs also being max rated they will be the players to watch, hopefully we can just perform well in the opener unlike the match against Scunthorpe that was a disaster.
