AcademyFA Youth Cup preview: 'Give everything you've got and have no regrets'
Marc Bridge-Wilkinson is confident his Liverpool U18s side can bounce back to their best form when they travel to Fleetwood Town in the FA Youth Cup on Sunday.
Four-time winners of the Youth Cup, the Reds are determined to respond after last Saturday’s disappointing 3-0 loss away at Manchester City in league action.
Bridge-Wilkinson’s team are hoping for a successful run in the competition this term as they begin by making the trip to Highbury Stadium for a 5pm GMT kick-off.
Fleetwood, who have beaten Wigan Athletic and Morecambe away from home to reach this stage of the cup, got to the fifth round last season only to lose to City.
Ahead of Sunday’s third-round tie, Bridge-Wilkinson spoke to Liverpoolfc.com about his Youth Cup hopes and more…
On last Saturday’s loss to Manchester City…
It was a difficult game for us. We knew going to City that it was going to be tough, they are very good at what they do and I don’t think on the day we played to the level that I know we are capable of. They played quite well and it made for a difficult day for us. There is lots of learning to be done and lots of stuff that we will help the boys with and we keep moving forwards.
Overall this season, there’s been lots of pleasing things so far. The individual performances from certain players, the development of some of the players from the start to where we are now, and there’s still lots more to do and still a long way to go with them. But we are improving all the time and hopefully as a team we can start to get back to winning ways this weekend.
On the start of the FA Youth Cup trail…
It’s always an exciting time of the year. It’s also a busy time of the year in December in this country with the football, as the first team play a multitude of fixtures and we have the FA Youth Cup, which we are really looking forward to. The boys are excited, as staff we are looking forward to Sunday and hopefully we can come out with a win and get into the next round.
On good memories of the FA Youth Cup, taking the Reds to the final back in 2021…
We got to the final with some good performances but in the final itself against Aston Villa I felt we struggled a bit on the day and we didn’t start very well, going 2-0 down fairly quickly. We got back into the game and got back into it at 2-1 and gave a better account of ourselves for the last hour of the game. There’s some good memories of that cup run and some good memories working with the players we had but this is a different group, different individuals and hopefully we can go someway to replicating that and maybe a step further.
On Northern Ireland U19 international Kieran Morrison catching the eye so far this season…
Kieran has scored a few goals for us in the last few games and he has been quite bright. Like the rest of the boys, he has still got an awful lot to do and lots of improvements we can help him with and we will continue to do that, whether he scores or doesn’t score and whether he plays well or doesn’t play well. We are always trying to help him understand his game and be better.
He has had a nice four or five weeks, including the international break as he did really well with Northern Ireland, so he is in a nice run of form. He can play in a variety of different positions. We’ve utilised him so far this season in a central area, off both sides and in midfield, so it’s going to be interesting to see where Kieran sort of starts to find his feet and where he feels most comfortable. At the moment he is showing himself to be very good playing in different areas of the pitch.
On Sunday’s trip to Highbury Stadium…
It’s a nice stadium. I took an U16 team there for an end-of-season game a few years back and it’s a really nice facility and hopefully the pitch will be in good shape, which I’m sure it will be. It will be a really nice occasion and we are looking forward to it. As always, our focus is on us and it’s all about what we do on the day. We’ll have an idea of what Fleetwood might do and the way they might play and set up, but it’s about making sure we play our way and we use the style that we’ve got with the players that we’ve got within to maximise our effect on the game.
On what his final message to his players will be…
Have no regrets, it’s really simple. Give everything you’ve got and try to play the team game while offering your individual excellence around that as well. At the end of the game, let’s make sure we have no regrets about effort, work-rate, competing against the opposition, and hopefully we will look back at the end on what will be a great performance.
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