The under-18s claimed a 3-1 win over Wigan Athletic in their final pre-season outing with Davis opting to go with the players who are likely to start against Blackburn on Saturday lunchtime, and goals from Josh Esen, Owen Farmer and Leon Chiwome made sure the team were in positive spirits ahead of the new campaign.
On heading into the season off a victory
“I thought everyone played well and played to the patterns that we’d been practising in training. Josh [Esen] got the first, Owen [Farmer] scored the second and Leon [Chiwome] got the third, and all three were good goals.
“There were lots of good signs as we showed the things we’ve been working on in the last four of five weeks. It was a really pleasing performance overall, and I stuck with some of the lads who are probably going to start against Blackburn for longer, and then brought a few of the younger lads on at the end for the last 15 minutes.
“But it was a good run-out for the lads and we feel well prepared for Saturday.”
On being fully prepared for Blackburn
“I went a bit stronger with the side looking ahead to Blackburn because we wanted to go with a line-up that was something closer to the team that will start our first game, giving them more minutes, trying to get 90 minutes out of some because some of the players hadn’t had a full game so far during pre-season, so we got 90 minutes from quite a few of them, then gave a few others some opportunities towards the end.
“That helped towards the result as it kept the momentum on the pitch. In previous games, when I’ve made seven changes it has disrupted any nature of flow that you can get in a game, so that helped keeping the same team on the pitch for a longer period.”
On having a fit squad at his disposal
“Unlike last season, we’re starting our first game this time out with an almost fully fit squad. Everyone is looking ok, with the exception of Ethan [McLeod] who had a reoccurrence of the hamstring injury he picked up last season. He had an operation last week, so he’s recovering at home now, and will come into the club a couple of days a week during his recovery.
“There’s also Ty [Barnett] who is working his way back and hasn’t played any minutes yet, but he’s nearly back and will be training with us soon. Everyone else who has been training with the group during pre-season is pretty much together and everybody’s available, so it’s been a good pre-season from that respect that we’ve been able to keep everybody going.
“Even when there’s been days when they’ve had to come out of training for blisters and minor things, we’ve got almost a full group to pick from.”
On focusing on their own game
“It’s difficult to see what they’ve been doing in pre-season, but there will be one or two games on Hudl which have been filmed, but generally, we just focus on ourselves and don’t really focus on the opposition too much.
“We’ve been focusing on getting our game right and making sure we’re doing the right work and our players are fit. We’ve not focused too much on any of our oppositions during pre-season, and it’s been about how we want to play and what we want to do from this group this season.”
On aims for 2022/23
“For me, are aims are pushing those who are on the fringes of getting the transition into the under-21s, getting them opportunities to train with the under-21s and if there are some openings, maybe push in there and get some minutes with James.
“In my opinion, there are probably two or three of our group who are not too far away from that position, and the others underneath, we just want to improve them and get them as near to that next step.
“Then with the schoolboys, it’s challenging them against under-18s. We’ve got some 15 and 16-year-olds who are really good players at that age, but we’ve got to challenge them with my group, and there’s maybe six or seven players who played with us last season, and hopefully we’ll have even more who we can give good exposure to in the under-18s this season and push them on.
“It’s the same goals that we have every season, just progress the players as much as possible to help push them on into the under-21s, if they’re ready, as quickly as possible and bring through the younger boys.”
