Preview | U21s travel to Middlesbrough for final game of PL2 regular season

Middlesbrough U21s v West Ham United U21s
Premier League 2, Riverside Stadium, Friday 11 April 2025, 7pm BST

West Ham United U21s travel to Middlesbrough on Friday night for their final game of the Premier League 2 regular season.

The young Hammers are currently the third seed out of the 26 teams, but will be looking for a win to avoid being overtaken by Chelsea or Crystal Palace in the ranks, should either of those sides score maximum points in their all-London clash on Monday evening.

How To Follow...

West Ham United's development fixture against Middlesbrough will not be live streamed. However, fans can stay up-to-date with the action via a live blog on the Club’s website and app, while a match report and reaction will follow shortly after the full-time whistle. Highlights will be available on Saturday.

Premier League 2 Explained…

To minimise the impact of relegation on future groups of U21 players, the Premier League introduced a new format to its development phase competition in 2023/24.

Replacing the two-division system, the 26 Category One academies now compete in a single tier with 20 regular season fixtures before the top 16 seeded teams advance to single-elimination play-offs.

Regular season fixtures are determined by a draw made according to clubs’ performances over the last three seasons. Each team plays 20 different opponents before the play-offs in May, where they will be drawn against each other based on league positions, with the higher seeded team playing at home. The top 12 are also rewarded with a place in the following season’s Premier League International Cup competition.

Opposition...  

In the first season with the new Premier League 2 play-off format, Middlesbrough U21s had begun the season six games unbeaten before falling to a 5-0 defeat at West Ham United. They would end up qualifying for the post-season play-offs as the eleventh-seeded team, losing to eventual semi-finalists Reading in the last 16.

This season however, Middlesbrough U21s have left their push a little too late. After managing just three wins in their opening 15 league games, Boro have since gone on to win three of their last four, with victories and clean sheets over Liverpool, Southampton and Leeds. Despite the upturn in form, they remain six points off the play-off places with two games to play, meaning qualification is now all but mathematically out of reach.

In the last eleven years, the two sides have only crossed paths on five occasions, with West Ham United U21s coming out on top in four of those meetings. The last came in 2023/24, when Callum Marshall’s hat-trick inspired a 5-0 win at Rush Green training ground.

Ones To Watch…

Playing every minute in all but two Premier League 2 fixtures this season, Kamarai Swyer has been almost ever-present for the U21s this season. Capable of playing in all positions across the front line, his hold up play and dribbling have been key to Mark Robson’s attacking set-up. Averaging a goal contribution once every two games, Swyer assisted both of Lewis Orford’s strikes to put the young Hammers in the driving seat last time out against Crystal Palace, before a stoppage-time flurry earned the visitors all three points.

At Middlesbrough since U9s, shot-stopper Shea Connor has been in fine form recently between the sticks. A highly-rated goalkeeper, having signed his first professional contract in January 2024, the 19-year-old has featured on the bench seven times for Middlesbrough in the EFL Championship. Keeping clean sheets in his last two appearances, wins against Liverpool and Southampton, Connor was the only goalkeeper to earn a Premier League 2 Player of the Month nomination for March.

How Things Stand In Premier League 2...

An excellent run of form in January and February, which saw the young Hammers win seven games in a row, secured West Ham a play-off berth for the second successive year, with four games to spare.

Currently seeded third, the U21s could still be caught by either Chelsea or Crystal Palace, who go head-to-head on Monday evening.