Aston Villa U23s vs Brentford U23s
After a winning start last week we kick off our league cup campaign at home to Brentford. The cups were a bright spot in our otherwise disastrous season last time around and we're hoping for another cup run and actually maybe some silverware at the end of it this time after we lost out in the main cup final on penalties.
We take on Brentford where I am surprised the manager has said he is not interested in youths. Neil is normally across all aspects of the game so for him to be neglecting them is an unusual one. They are actually a reasonable side with some decent players as well which makes his decision even more baffling. Still we'll be happy for this one as we're not too proud to hopefully take a simple three points.
At this stage we will be better on paper than every side we play but the danger of a long cup run is that we end up with players having to be promoted. This was the case last season when we went well in both cups and played 51 games! Even if a player plays only 40 of them if they gain an average of 20 abs per game that is 800 abs up. At that rate i'd have to promote 5 or 6 players by the end of it so the season still needs to be a balancing act - even with various bits to help this time round. But that's always a nice problem to have and it's how we develop first teamers.
We have no injury concerns for this one and so will just be rotating for fitness. The squad has decent depth although i am just one defender short of it being ideal. That may be something we look at as the season progresses. In that area though, after coming off an intense preseason in the week, Junior Wilson will make his Villa debut in this one.
We had a strong roster last season and it was a disaster. It's even stronger this time - hopefully we can make it a season to remember.
Burnley U23s vs Wolverhampton Wanderers U23s
After a fantastic start to the season last weekend with a victory over Liverpool we start our cup campaign away at Burnley. Their manager seems to have gone awol in recent weeks so i'm not entirely sure what to expect from this one.
When I took over Wolves the focus was on the seniors. Whilst they aren't complete as yet we have improved them to a degree and now work has started on the youth. The key is to improve the secondary skills of the team - every player must have strings to their bow. This may see some strange looking transfers where we lose the primary skill of the player but fans are asked to be patient and we assure them we know what we are doing. We are building a side that are capable of challenging but, more importantly, providing first team standard players in seasons to come.
Burnley have 2 players we greatly admire in Miranda and former Villa U23 man Junior Kadile. If the manager were available those are two we would be trying to buy now but as stated - he isn't. Collins is also of decent quality but not a lot else comes up behind that. Whilst we don't have the best squad I would hope we'll have enough to get past them in this one.
For us, Kitolano, McKenna and Gidaree will be with the squad for the penultimate time before they move on at the weekend. We will keep using them whilst we have them but they were never in our long term plans. Hopefully they will continue to give their all. This game will also see the debut of another former Villa Park prospect in Ryan Trevitt who joined from Arsenal in the week. A mainstay of the Villa U23s last season he was moved on to add some more defensive nous in the off season but he will be a key player for the Wolves youngsters this time and immediately strengthens the squad.
Like the seniors, every win we can get as we build this squad is almost a bonus. Hopefully this will be one of them
Local derby game in the league cup sees us away at Leeds and a very tough game for us at we are both away from home and up against a slightly stronger team.
We will be aiming to get points in this no matter what and will also rotate a bit as we have a smallish squad and need to do that to maintain fitness but also to gain abs for players.
We have slowly been rebuilding the youth side and its looking alot better than the end of last season so hopefully we can build on our opening league game win, it will be interesting to see how we perform in the cup in this away game we need to take full advantage of the full weaker keeper of the home side
