ACADEMY Manager Jeremy Newton is in Holland this week with three more Academy age groups and continues his tour diary.
The Swindon Town Academy has returned to Holland for the second part of their training and games programme based in Utrecht. The U13s, U14s, and U15s left on Sunday evening for their five day visit to play against SC Emma, Gravenzande, AZ Alkmaar and Willem II.
Like the three younger age groups last week, the lads will be working on the ‘Four Corners’ aspect of their development.
The older age groups got off to a good start in Holland with all three groups winning their first game against SC Emma on Monday night.
The 13s ran out winners by a six-goal margin of victory, to a team a lot older than our boys. Special praise goes to Jayden Mitchell-Lawson who caused the opposition problems throughout the game. The 14s won 5-0 with good performances from Callum Gunner and Jabari Hylton. These two players will be included in the 15s squad to face AZ Alkmaar tonight.
As Academy Manager, I will be working with the under 15s this week and they got off to a good 2-1 victory against an under 18s SC Emma side. Town went into the lead when Jake Evans beat a couple of players to fire the ball past the ‘keeper in the bottom corner. They doubled their lead soon after from a corner when Alex Fenton sneaked in to guide the ball past the ‘keeper. Half time came and, with the Alkmaar game the following day, I gave a few players the second half off and gave other players game time so we have had all match minutes going into the game on Tuesday. The second half started and we made several chances and should have gone on to score at least another four however, the opposition ‘keeper made some good saves along with us not being clinical enough. SC Emma scored a late goal, through an individual mistake but other than that, they never looked a threat to our goal. Overall, it was a good performance. We have picked up some injuries to Ollie Hunt and Joe Stokes and they will be assessed this morning.
The under 13s and 14s have training this morning with the 14s having a match analysis session in the afternoon. The 13s will train again while the 15s will have a recovery session before resting for tonight's big game against AZ Alkmaar.