A draw and a defeat as the youth kick off pre-season programme
Town’s youth team have been back at Walford since the start of July to get down to the hard work of pre-season training. Wayne Evans and Pete Wilding have arranged a number of pre-season games for the youngsters to get some early match practice in. They kicked off with a draw away to Burton Albion and this was followed by a trip to Bolton Wanderers.
Burton 1 Shrewsbury Town 1
Town: Wearing, Burton, Carpenter, Richards, Holmes, Smith, Westray, Phillips, Easthope, Stephenson, Gwilliams, Evans, Molyneux, Ryan, Roberts, Jones, Musslewhite.
Goal: S.Ryan
Our first pre-season run out took us the fantastic facilities of the FA’s St Georges Park to play Burton Albion.
With eight new faces in the squad performances can take time to settle but at for periods of the game we looked threatening on the counter attack as we have good pace wide, up front and from midfield to give opposing sides problems.
Both sides created plenty of chances throughout the game with Burton starting slightly the better and forcing Wearing into some fine early saves. With mixed performances from our boys we kept trying to play through the thirds of the pitch and occasionally with some success, although we must begin to do this with more pace and assertion along with self belief.
Scott Ryan gave us the lead with a fine volley into the bottom left hand corner only for a collective poor defensive error gifting Burton an equaliser. Overall it was an excellent experience for our boys to play at a wonderful venue and a very worthwhile first run out leaving us plenty to ponder over and work on.
Bolton 2 Shrewsbury Town 0
Town: Wearing, Burton, Carpenter, Richards, Holmes, Smith, Westray, Phillips, Easthope, Stephenson, Gwilliams, Evans, Molyneux, Ryan, Roberts, Jones, Musslewhite.
Another good fixture for us today (17th July) up at Bolton but too many of our boys didn’t perform, maybe putting it down to nerves or too much respect for the opposition. For an hour of the game we were second best in too many areas, our passing wasn’t quick enough or accurate enough and our ball retention must improve. Unfortunately the two goals we did concede again were poor errors on our part, although we understand the boys are learning but they are at the stage were results and developing that winning mentality is vitally important and every game they have should be treated as their last.
We made one or two personnel changes for the last half hour and this saw us pass the ball better from back to front, which at times was a pleasure to see and install’s our belief that the players understand the way we want to play. Overall again some positives but we must make these more consistent and as we prepare for another trip up north to Leeds this Saturday (21st July). The boys don’t have too much time to reflect on disappointments as they need to get ready to improve on these first two performances.
Pete Wilding