Trophy winner looks ahead to first Checkatrade group game
Shrewsbury Town take on Manchester City’s Under-21 squad in the first Checkatrade Trophy group stage game.
City’s youth team will travel to the Montgomery Waters Meadow with the aim of getting the first three points of group D.
Last year’s winner, Luke Waterfall, is looking forward to welcoming City’s youth side to Shrewsbury and expects a tough test from the young lads.
“I would imagine with it being Man City, they’ll have some amazing young players,” Luke told Shrewsweb.
“We’re not quite sure what to expect as yet, but I would imagine they will be very football minded.
“Looking at the Man City first team and how Pep Guardiola has got them playing, I would imagine they will replicate that down to the Under 23’s.
“It will be a good game, an interesting game and something different, which I’ll look forward to.”
Waterfall has previous experience of playing against a Premier League Under 21’s squad and feels he will be able to draw on that knowledge.
“We played a young Chelsea team last year in the semi-final when I was at Lincoln,” Luke said.
“They have a lot of good young players, some of the best in Europe.
“It’s a different test all together, but we pose a different threat to them I suppose.
“They’re used to nice passing football out from the keeper and bit of a slower tempo.
“If we can go in there like we did against Chelsea at Lincoln, we started fast at them, we were direct and we managed to grind them down and get the win, hopefully we can do the same here.”
Manchester City will be travel to the Montgomery Waters Meadow for the 7pm kick-off.