Brewers kids shaping up
BURTON Albion’s under-18s have again been demonstrating this season that there is a strong crop of promising players coming through.
Wins against Worcester City and Mansfield Town have taken them through to the third round of the FA Youth Cup. They were due to play Stoke City away today until the FA decided to suspend the competition in the hope that the Covid-19 crisis will ease.
If they get past Stoke, Southampton away is up next.
“We are still expecting the fixtures to be played at some point. They have said the situation will be reviewed at the end of January, if not sooner,” said Brewers academy manager Dan Robinson.
“If there was an improvement in cases across the country, there could be a few sanctions lifted.”
League fixtures for the under-18s have not yet been suspended and the team have made a strong start in the EFL Youth Alliance North East, sitting third after nine games.
Under-18s lead coach Sam Rose said: “There have been some barriers. Sometimes players are asked to self-isolate.
“Touch wood, we’ve not had that ourselves but other clubs have and we’ve had to move fixtures.
“We’ve been really pleased with the performances of the group. Because of the type of performances they’ve been putting in, we’ve won most of our games – we’ve won six, drawn one and lost two, as well as winning the first two games in the Youth Cup.”
Forward Jakub Niemczyk, who has made two senior appearances as a substitute in the EFL Trophy, will miss out on any resumption of fixtures this season, having needed an operation to repair knee ligaments.