Development side head coach James Collins has been relishing the return of his players from their summer break as the under-21s prepare for life in the top-flight of youth football following their promotion at the end of last season – and with a new name after the age category was lowered from under-23 football last month.
With warm-up friendlies against Llanelli Town this Saturday and Coventry City behind closed doors next week coming up ahead of the team jetting out to the USA, Collins has been happy with what he's seen from his group.
On return from summer break
“It was nice to have a break as it was a long second half to the season as we went right through to the very end. Although we had a few weeks off, you do start to get the bug back, ready to go back again.
“I think we’re all excited to go into a new season, in a new division with new competitions and teams to play against. As well as moving up into Premier League 2 Division 1, we’ll also be playing in the Premier League International Cup, which will be exciting, and give the players another challenge.
“It’s nice to have everyone back and refreshed, ready for the new challenge.”
On players training with the first-team
“In these early weeks of pre-season, our players don’t tend to work together as a group, because a lot of the players will be working with the first-team and the gaffer, as the first-team will be easing their way back to pre-season.
“But now most of the first-team players are back, the decision will be made to see which of our players will be coming out to America with ourselves, and which ones will stick with the first-team and go on their tour to Spain.
“That will be a great experience for them. They will be hoping to catch his eye, but it will also improve their game and give them valuable experience.
“For the under-21s, pre-season is almost a little bit more individual as we try to do what is right for the individual player, and we’ll also have a couple of lads who go out on loan as well, who are ready for that challenge.
“We want to make sure the players are in the right group for their own individual development, so the team kind of takes a back seat for the first few weeks and as we get towards the end of pre-season, we get a clearer picture of what names we’ve got and then we can start planning for the league campaign.”
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On a pre-season juggling act with his squad
“Truthfully, it’s not difficult. It’s not ideal if you are just purely working on one team, but there would be nothing worse than for us to come back and all the players be with me and none of them with the first-team.
“That would be a waste of time because we want our players to progress, so the fact that we’re joined up, the gaffer wants them with him, they’ve gone with him and they’ve done very well in the first few weeks that I’ve seen, it shows that we’re developing our players the right way.
“It’s not difficult, but it’s actually quite exciting for us to see who he takes with him to Spain, whether they come back with us, and the ups and downs and the rollercoaster of under-21 football is quite exciting.
“They’re still getting work in which will help our players progress, it just means we won’t be doing a planned team pre-season.”
On under-23 football becoming an under-21 competition
“It was not something that I really concerned myself with. We’re quite a young group anyway, and that’s the club’s policy, to go with the young group in most of our age categories. Our under-18s last year were very much 15 or 16, and our 23s were very much 17, 18 or 19.
“With the changes to the age categories, I don’t think it will impact us too much, and all we can do is look after ourselves and make sure we provide the best possible provision for our young players to get to the next stage and the next level.
“I don’t think it will have a particularly big effect on the league because most teams in Premier League 2 are 21 and under. There are not many 23-year-olds who are playing in the league, but you can still do that anyway with the overage players rule, so I don’t think it will make a dramatic change, but time will tell.”
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On getting match fit
“We’ve got a few friendlies in the next week before we go to America, firstly we’re playing Llanelli on Saturday which will be a bit of a long trip, but it’ll be an interesting game, playing somewhere different and somewhere we haven’t been before.
“It’ll be a hard first game, so we’ll probably give 45 minutes each to two teams, as we’ll have some of the under-18s with us. Then we’ll play Coventry next week behind closed doors at Compton, which will be a real test.
“In these kinds of games, and at this stage of pre-season, results aren’t particularly important. It’s about building up fitness levels and trying to embed some of the points that we’ve been working on. The most important thing is that everyone gets fit and stays fit.”
