It will be the last game for Jack Darius before he moved up to the senior team. He is too good for youth football but won't make it into senior football. One of many just sitting in the roster to make up numbers. Our performance in the cup has been decent and we sit on six points after three games played. Playing Spurs U23 away from home is never easy but I feel we got momentum at the moment and we've been able to make draws into wins lately. We got a strong U23 outfit but we got players reaching the level where they will level up and it's still early days. It's going to be so hard to operate this youth team and I'm not looking forward to the second part of the season.
While we've struggled in the league we've done amazing in the Under Armour Challenge Cup. We sit top of the table after three straight wins and another win will secure our place in the next round. We've found it hard to score goals up to now in the season and is working every day on the training ground to improve ourselves. Zack Marsh, Caleb Redhead and Francis Jno-Baptiste is three great youth players but at the moment they lack confident and miss most their chances. I'm sure if they regain the self belief, we're going to see all three knocking those balls into the back of the net. Kazimcan Karatas is one of few players in the roster who is able to play attacking midfielder and we've decided to boost him with the help of U23 items. If he can produce the goods, we're in a much better situation offensively.
We are not fairing well in this competition having only won one of the three games and sit 3rd 4 points behind the leaders.
This one then we need to win to ensure that we stay in touch with a chance of qualifying. As the top two face each other and should one team win and we lose we could be 7 points behind with 2 games left and basically out of the running and proceeding in the competition.
I do accept that it was going to be hard with a division one side in our group but I can't accept giving up until the maths say we can't do it.
For the game with Leeds we have a full squad and no injuries or suspensions so hopefully we can deliver.
We are second in the group behind Villa who we lost to so all we can do at the moment is to try keep winning and hope they slip up or we can beat them when we meet in the return.
Saints our the team we face now and we will be at home so have a slight advantage there and will have the fans behind us.
Newman in midfield is suspended so will miss this one for Southampton and we have a full squad for selection. On paper there is little difference between the sides so we need to be on our best game.
This is going to be a top game both sides are currently joint 1st in the table both putting 5 goals in the first 3 games, with this in mind we need to make sure the defence is on top form but Nunes will miss due to fitness and Day out with red card but Browne will cover this position. We need to use the home advantage as a win here will put us in a great position to exit the group in pole position while a loss will mean that we need to keep an eye on the other fixture to see if Sheffield utd creap up to 6 points.
A different prospect here now as the Brentford manager has taken an interest in the youths. That makes this game far more challenging than it would have been. We do fortunately get them before they demote a couple of big names so hopefully we can take advantage of that.
A win here would guarantee us progression whilst a draw will basically be enough due to the massive GD advantage we have thanks to our 9-1 win last time out in this one. I've said throughout I want to get qualification wrapped up early so we can rotate and this is our first chance to do it. We won't be rotating until that is done though
What will also help us is they will be missing their first choice GK - I expect them to try and fill the defence to compensate so we will have to break that down. We have a full side to pick from so just the normal rotation.
It's a winnable game and a chance to achieve that early qualification. The lads can earn themselves a couple of midweeks off here so they need to step up and make it happen
We're home to Burnley in a game where a win will see us all but mathematically qualify for the next round. Our superior GD over Man City would see to that. But after this one we have two away games so no room for slip ups here.
The away leg against Burnley was the only slip up on our otherwise perfect season so far which means we have a wrong to right as well. We know we're not going to win every game but we should have won that one so it'd be nice to make sure we come away with the spoils here. An early chance to rest and rotate that would come with qualification would be an additional bonus.
They will be without Pimlott in midfield and have fitness issues which helps us. We have a full squad to pick from
We're on good form and this one is a winnable game. No complacency but we should be able to get the job done
