City U18 return to league action on Saturday as they welcome Shrewsbury Town to the Elite Performance Centre (1:30pm KO).
Hear from head coach Sam Tillen and forward Dakara Wifa as well as important match information in this preview.
Sam Tillen’s thoughts:
“There’s depth within that group with the few lads we’ve called on already and that’s brilliant. The pathway we want in the Academy is to have promising young players and give them the opportunity to play U18 football when they deserve it. We need to provide that and hopefully they can take it.
“It’ll be a good challenge, they’ve been a little bit up and down this season so far which means it’s down to us to concentrate on ourselves and our game plan but we acknowledge they have a threat and areas that can cause us a problem. We’ve identified those and will look to execute our game plan to give ourselves the best chance of getting three points.”
Dakara Wifa on his FA Youth Cup hat-trick:
“As a team we did well, did what we meant to do and put the game away early. I think we did well in the first half, scored an early goal then had a bit of shaky 20 minutes but in the second half we came back out, reset and finished the game off.
“I was pleased with my performance, good goals but the team helped me so I think it was a good performance as a whole and as a team. The most important thing is that we’ve won, it’s knockout football so that’s biggest thing.”
A look at the opposition:
Shrewsbury Town have had a mixed bag of results in the Youth Alliance so far this season, with just one win in their last four league games. The Shrews have shown their quality at times though with impressive away wins against Grimsby Town and Chesterfield.
They come into the game sitting 15th in the division, while City are fourth with games in hand on third-placed Preston North End.
Match information:
Sam Tillen’s side will look to continue their momentum when they return to Youth Alliance action.
The game is behind closed doors, but supporters can keep up to date with the game with updates available from our Academy X (formerly Twitter) account.