Posh U18s to begin campaign against The Swans on Saturday morning.
Peterborough United U18s are set to kick-off their Under 18s Professional Development League campaign on Saturday morning (11am) as they face Swansea City U18s at Landore Training Ground.
The under 18s enjoyed a highly successful campaign in the Professional Development League last season, finishing third in the table and only three points off second-place Sheffield United, while also winning the Professional Development League Cup.
Posh were involved in many goal-fests in their pre-season campaign, including rampant victories against West Ham and Sunderland U18s, 5-4 and 5-2 respectively, while also good runouts against Bourne Town and Southend United.
Defender Fabian Claxton is set to miss this weekend’s game, but a full squad is expected to face The Swans, who finished sixth in the table last season in the Southern Division. U18s Professional Development Assistant Coach reflected on a positive pre-season schedule for the under 18s and is looking to help the development of players throughout the season.
“We are obviously very excited to get the season started now. Pre-season has its job and was really important for us to get our fitness levels up, but it’s good to get back to competitive football. It has been a really positive couple of weeks, we only have one injury in Fabian [Claxton] but all the other players have come through and we have Ollie Rose coming back to fitness, which is brilliant news for us.
“We got all the minutes in the players that we needed to and we will hopefully look to peak on Saturday against Swansea City, but we also had loads of time with the squad to get our principles into our style of play. We had a good mixture of fixtures as well in pre-season, including category one academies as well as playing senior teams, so they have had plenty of different experiences.
“It’s not all about where the team finishes this season, but more about developing players and the ultimate aim is getting players into the first team, so as long as we are doing that then we are doing our job. However, it’s a lot easier to achieve that if the team is doing well and individuals can excel in that environment, so hopefully we can have another successful year.”