Although the October interruption break has caused another pause in Aston Villa’s Premier League fixture list, at the beginning of the week fans had plenty to shout about as our Under 21 squad made it back to back victories in the EFL Trophy as they faced another set of more seasoned professionals in the shape of Burton Albion.
Having picked up our first ever win in the competition against Wycombe Wanderers the other week, Burton were a tough cookie to crack and it took our squad going 2-0 down before we clicked, adjusted and showed what we were capable of.
But when it clicked, oh boy did it click and we finally came out as justified 4-2 victors following a fantastic hattrick from Cameron Archer and an effort from Tristan Abldeen-Goodridge.
Cameron Archer scored a superb hat-trick for Aston Villa's U21s in their comeback win against Burton Albion. pic.twitter.com/093E9WR1YG
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) October 6, 2021
Best Of Archer's Three?
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2nd
3rd
There was every reason for our Academy staff to be delighted after that showing and George Boateng was delighted, calling it a ‘brave’ performance from the lads – but he was still demanding more from them.
“What pleases us most is that they were so brave in sticking to what we wanted them to do, in terms of playing out from the back. Burton did ask questions of us and sometimes it’s easy when you go 2-0 down to say ‘we won’t play out from the back, we’ll go long’. They kept at it, they kept trying and as soon as we scored the equaliser their confidence grew so much and they thought ‘we can do this’. People will now talk about how we’ve qualified, which is great for the lads because we need more games in this tournament for them to develop.”
With Wycombe being our first win in six attempts, this is, of course, the first time we’ve qualified through for the next stage of the tournament and this experience could be key for the players’ development, so let’s see just how far we can go – could this be the Wembley trip for 2021/22?
Ending his interview, Boateng was also full of praise for the 700 odd travelling faithful.
“The game was perfect for the boys because in the second half they were playing towards the Villa fans. That gave them a big boost to go on and do better. As soon as Tristan Goodridge’s equaliser went in, I think the fans were overjoyed. We loved seeing the boys run to celebrate with them. I really enjoyed seeing that because some of these players haven’t played in front of big crowds yet. They really inspired the boys.”
