Youth Team enjoying a productive pre-season
Shrewsbury Town's Under-18s are halfway through their pre-season games programme ahead of the 2018/19 EFL Youth Alliance campaign.
So far, Town have taken on men's sides in Loughborough University and Newtown, whilst they have also faced Birmingham Under-18s.
They continue their preparations tomorrow when they take on Newport County Under-18s at Lilleshall (2pm), before travelling to the Iber Cup in Denmark next week.
Town's Under-18s are yet to win any of their pre-season games, but Academy Manager Eric Ramsay has been pleased with the performances his side have shown.
“It's gone really well, I'm really pleased”, said Eric.
“The games we've had have been really competitive against good quality opposition that play in a way not dissimilar to ours, so it has given us the opportunity to dominate in spells, but also find ourselves in spells where we are not so dominant and we are having to defend.
“We’ve pitched ourselves, especially in the cases of Loughborough and Newtown, against sides where there is a big age gap, so we were never too concerned about the results, but the games themselves have been really competitive and our performances have been good.
“A lot of what we have been talking about and working on we’ve seen, but also it’s given us an opportunity to see areas in which we are weak and perhaps where we need to focus on more in the coming weeks.”
The Youth Team have a relatively large squad this season in comparison to recent seasons, but Eric believes everyone will be given a fair chance to impress.
“We’ve had a good couple of dropdowns from the first-team, which has impacted on some of the minutes out players have played and that’s par for the course”, Ramsay said.
“But, there’s been a fairly good spread amongst most of the players and those that haven’t played quite as much as they might have done have done extra work in the week, so I think we are in a fairly good place fitness-wise.
“Next week we go to Denmark where we will be expecting to play a lot of games, so I think anyone that hasn’t played as much as they would like to far will have the opportunity to do so next week.”