U18s coach Mark Phillips reflects on a busy year at the Academy
Hello,
It’s been a particularly busy time for everyone involved in the U18s as we’ve finished our season off with three games in seven days.
Ultimately, it proved to be a very difficult task given the number of young players and schoolboys we used.
Since Terry Westley has come in as Academy Manager last summer, we have really tried to test our players as much as possible.
One of the best ways of doing that is by promoting players above their age categories. The best example is Reece Burke who has excelled since making the step up to first team football.
Everyone in the Academy is absolutely delighted for him. Having worked with him for a number of years, he’s had always had that potential and desire, so to see his hard work pay-off is excellent. It also serves as a massive incentive for all the other lads.
Going back to our last three games, while the results didn’t go our way, I was very pleased with our performances, the youngsters that came in did superbly.
In our last game of the season, against Leicester City, it was a hard fought game and the team worked really hard which is a massive positive.
I’ll admit that I was pretty fearful of what the score could’ve been beforehand, knowing how young our team was. But after watching the young lads play, I was really impressed and I won’t be so nervous next time.
While Leicester were deserved winners, we were in the game and we played some good football.
After the match, the Leicester coaches said how impressed they were with the way our older players were constantly talking and advising our younger players. They used their experience to help ease the younger players into the older age group.
In total we used six 14-year-olds. You might get two or three in a game but I certainly can’t remember six underage players been played before.
We asked them to go out and pass the ball round the Leicester players as that’s how they were going to create chances.
It’s been a particularly busy time for everyone involved in the U18s as we’ve finished our season off with three games in seven days.
Ultimately, it proved to be a very difficult task given the number of young players and schoolboys we used.
Since Terry Westley has come in as Academy Manager last summer, we have really tried to test our players as much as possible.
One of the best ways of doing that is by promoting players above their age categories. The best example is Reece Burke who has excelled since making the step up to first team football.
Everyone in the Academy is absolutely delighted for him. Having worked with him for a number of years, he’s had always had that potential and desire, so to see his hard work pay-off is excellent. It also serves as a massive incentive for all the other lads.
Going back to our last three games, while the results didn’t go our way, I was very pleased with our performances, the youngsters that came in did superbly.
In our last game of the season, against Leicester City, it was a hard fought game and the team worked really hard which is a massive positive.
I’ll admit that I was pretty fearful of what the score could’ve been beforehand, knowing how young our team was. But after watching the young lads play, I was really impressed and I won’t be so nervous next time.
While Leicester were deserved winners, we were in the game and we played some good football.
After the match, the Leicester coaches said how impressed they were with the way our older players were constantly talking and advising our younger players. They used their experience to help ease the younger players into the older age group.
In total we used six 14-year-olds. You might get two or three in a game but I certainly can’t remember six underage players been played before.
We asked them to go out and pass the ball round the Leicester players as that’s how they were going to create chances.
Our central midfielders put in a real shift and got our team playing well. Alfie Lewis, an U15, used the ball well, while Marcus Browne was playing his second game in a week after returning from five months out injured.
Up front, Idris Kanu is a nightmare for defenders. I remember when I used to play football, what I hated most was a striker that caused you problems. That’s exactly was Idris did and he is still an U15. He could be playing for us in the FA Youth Cup for three years which shows how much potential our team has.
Looking ahead to next season, it’s got to be the target that these players are regularly featuring for the U18s. If you take those six for example, along with the five or six U16’s that we’ve just secured on professional contracts like Anthony Scully and Jahmal Hector-Ingram, we’ve got a fantastic young squad ready to push on next season and compete.
As a West Ham fan, you really want to see the club winning whether it’s men, women, boys or girls. However, when you’re working for an Academy, you have to work towards the bigger picture and for us, we have a bright future ahead of us and we are working towards it well.
Last season I was Steve Potts’ assistant and we both shared a similar philosophy on how the game should be played. When Steve took the U21 job, I felt like there wasn’t any need to really change anything because we still work closely together.
Working closely with Terry is really good because we share ideas and talk about what we can do to help the lads progress.
Personally, I’ve really enjoyed this season. I was as pleased with our performance against Leicester where we lost 2-0 as I was when we beat Reading 5-0.
Being able to sit and say that you’re happy with the performances of your team, as well as seeing players pushing up to higher levels is very rewarding.
Now the season has finished, I’m looking forward to spending some more time with my new granddaughter who is less than a week old before preparing for the Hong Kong Soccer Sevens tournament later this month.
COYI!
Mark
Up front, Idris Kanu is a nightmare for defenders. I remember when I used to play football, what I hated most was a striker that caused you problems. That’s exactly was Idris did and he is still an U15. He could be playing for us in the FA Youth Cup for three years which shows how much potential our team has.
Looking ahead to next season, it’s got to be the target that these players are regularly featuring for the U18s. If you take those six for example, along with the five or six U16’s that we’ve just secured on professional contracts like Anthony Scully and Jahmal Hector-Ingram, we’ve got a fantastic young squad ready to push on next season and compete.
As a West Ham fan, you really want to see the club winning whether it’s men, women, boys or girls. However, when you’re working for an Academy, you have to work towards the bigger picture and for us, we have a bright future ahead of us and we are working towards it well.
Last season I was Steve Potts’ assistant and we both shared a similar philosophy on how the game should be played. When Steve took the U21 job, I felt like there wasn’t any need to really change anything because we still work closely together.
Working closely with Terry is really good because we share ideas and talk about what we can do to help the lads progress.
Personally, I’ve really enjoyed this season. I was as pleased with our performance against Leicester where we lost 2-0 as I was when we beat Reading 5-0.
Being able to sit and say that you’re happy with the performances of your team, as well as seeing players pushing up to higher levels is very rewarding.
Now the season has finished, I’m looking forward to spending some more time with my new granddaughter who is less than a week old before preparing for the Hong Kong Soccer Sevens tournament later this month.
COYI!
Mark