Off the back of the 3-1 loss to Grimsby Town, the young Imps return to Youth Alliance North action when welcoming Crewe Alexandra to the Gen2 Energy Elite Performance Centre on Saturday 24 October (12pm KO).
Read all the key information as well as the thoughts of both Kian Sagoo and Sam Tillen ahead of the clash with the Railwaymen.
Key Information
Crewe have had an equally positive start as City, accumulating an impressive 19 points from their opening eight games, losing just once over that period whilst winning six and drawing once. This is Crewe’s first season as a Cat 3 academy after announcing in April of this year that they were voluntarily dropping down from Cat 2 level. They sit third in the North West division with Stockport leading the way having dropped no points in their opening nine with Wrexham sitting in second on 22 points.
The Alex’ most recent fixture was the long journey to face Carlisle United, a trip they made a worthwhile one as the came away as 5-2 winners. Prior to that it was another dominant victory as they breezed past Bradford City, sending the Bantams home off the back of a 4-0 defeat. The only loss of their season came when travelling to face Grimsby Town where they were shut out in a 2-0 loss by the Mariners.
Despite never being in the same category of academy before this season, there has been a recent meeting between these two sides, and it was when they were drawn in the same group for the U17 PDL Cup. As a cat 2 academy, it was the Railwaymen who took all three points in the opening group game, but City didn’t go down without a fight and were only narrowly defeated after Max Robinson scored for the young Imps in a 2-1 loss.
Kian Sagoo and Sam Tillen’s thoughts
Sagoo said: “The result against Grimsby isn’t going to affect us, Crewe are coming here on Saturday and all of us lads want to put in a positive performance.”
He added: “We’re going to regroup throughout the week and we’re going to take the things we didn’t do well tonight and put them right and we’re going to make sure we analyse Saturday’s opposition the best we can.”
Tillen said: “We know Crewe are a very good side at our level, they’ve started the season extremely well, we’re going have to improve from what we saw against Grimsby. The benefit of having a game so quick is that there is no time to dwell on the result and we can go again on Saturday.”