AcademyFA Youth Cup preview: 'It's a wonderful competition and really exciting for the boys'
Marc Bridge-Wilkinson is hoping the FA Youth Cup will once again bring the best out of his young players as Liverpool travel to Preston North End in the third round on Friday night.
Four-time winners, the Reds enjoyed a fine run in the competition last season – the undoubted highlight being a 7-1 routing of Arsenal when Lewis Koumas netted a hat-trick and Jayden Danns scored twice – before it ended at the quarter-final stage.
There is sure to be a bumper crowd at Deepdale when the U18s begin their journey in the 2024-25 edition, and the game is one that can be watched on LFCTV and LFCTV GO from 6.55pm GMT (in the UK only).
Read on as Bridge-Wilkinson speaks with Liverpoolfc.com to preview the tie and underline the importance of this prestigious tournament…
On the Youth Cup…
It's a wonderful competition. Really exciting for the boys and the staff as well, so exciting times. Deepdale is a wonderful stadium and Preston North End are a really good club. It's a really good draw for both teams, I think. To play at their first-team stadium under the lights, it's going to be a wonderful occasion for both teams. Hopefully we can come out on top.
On the challenge of Preston…
I think they are a good side from what we've seen. You can never really judge as to what you are going to get on the night as some of their boys play with the older age groups at times. But from what we've seen, they will be tough to play against and they are a good footballing side who like to play into the front area of the pitch nice and quickly. It's going to be a really interesting game.
On last season's 7-1 win over Arsenal in the Youth Cup...
That was a great occasion. I think on the day pretty much everything we tried to do worked for us. We managed to come through with quite a heavy scoreline in our favour, which was wonderful. It's a completely different team this year and completely different opposition, but we will try to recreate the best we can.
On the heartbreak of losing to two stoppage-time goals at Everton last weekend…
I thought we did OK but we were quite naive and we played quite immature at times. We didn't keep the ball for long enough periods and then we were really susceptible and open every time they attacked us. We gave away a lot of chances we wouldn't want to normally. So, it's something we have talked about this week and we want to rectify it come Friday night.
On the excellent form of 16-year-old winger Joe Bradshaw…
Joe has done really well in recent weeks. He has a really great character. He trains hard and works hard every day and tries to better himself in every moment in a day that he can. Obviously he is now starting to see some of the rewards from the work that he has been putting in. He has scored some really good and effective goals in recent weeks.
On the importance of playing in the Youth Cup for these young players…
It's the one competition at U18 level that we really get the chance to prep for. We want to win every game and every competition that we enter, but this is the one when we do a little bit more homework. We study the opposition a little bit, we spend more time working on the ways and means on how we are going to attack and approach the game. Hopefully it gives the players a greater understanding of what they are going to go into at U21 level and then into first-team football – an understanding of how you prep to win a game.
This article has been automatically translated and, while all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, some errors in translation are possible. Please refer to the original English-language version of the article for the official version.