Posh U21s To Face Aston Villa In Premier League Cup

Read Time: 3 mins

Posh U21s kick-off their Premier League Cup campaign with a trip to West Midlands.

Peterborough United U21s begin their Premier League Cup campaign on Friday evening (7pm) as they travel to Bodymoor Heath Training Ground to face Aston Villa U21s, hoping to repeat last season’s success in the competition.

Matthew Etherington’s side will also face Brentford and Blackburn Rovers alongside Aston Villa in their Premier League Cup group, where Posh progressed through last season and reached the quarter-finals before being knocked out by Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Will Lakin, who was on the bench for the first team on Tuesday night, will return for the U21s tomorrow night, while Etherington has confirmed that Harry Titchmarsh and Gabriel Overton will remain in the squad after they were involved in Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat against Bristol City at the Weston Homes Stadium.

Two goals in the final 20 minutes condemned the under 21 to defeat and Etherington was critical of his players not being ruthless in both boxes during the 90 minutes.

Etherington said: “In between both boxes, we were okay. Played some good stuff at times, but we created very little as they did and ultimately two mistakes at the end of the game cost us. So, we have to be more ruthless in both boxes, I thought we created the better chances in the first half but still weren’t good enough to make the most of them, which was disappointing and we need a stronger mentality about us if we don’t win the game, then we need to at least draw it.

“I didn’t want to take Harry [Titchmarsh] and Gabriel [Overton] off, but we need to look after players with the amount of games being played at the minute, especially Gabriel with his recent hamstring problem. They will both be involved tomorrow night, so I thought it was important they were looked after a bit. We had three U18s players on Tuesday and they all coped very well, so that was positive from the game. However, it will be difficult against a strong Aston Villa side, but it will be a good test for the players.”

Full Premier League Cup schedule: