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Premiership Football News: Glimpse into the future

Andy Greeves on England's U-19 Team

With many of England's U19 starlets featuring in and around the squads of Premiership teams, it was hardly surprising that a sell-out crowd turned out to AFC Bournemouth's Dean Court ground recently to see the young Three Lions take on their Spanish counterparts. After all, the U19 line-up for the game included Everton midfielder Daniel Gosling, who recently netted the Toffees FA Cup forth round winner against Liverpool, Arsenal trio Gavin Hoyte, Henri Lansbury and Jack Wilshere and Manchester United's Danny Drinkwater.

Despite suggestions to the contrary, football at youth level in England seems to be in fairly good order as U19 Head Coach Brian Eastick commented ahead of the match in Dorset. "There's a lot of good young players we can select from both the Premier League and Football League," said the former Birmingham City and Newcastle United youth academy manager. "A lot of hard work goes on in this country to produce good young footballers. It can always be improved of course, but long may that hard work continue."

"Stuart Pearce (Under 21 Head Coach) has been absolutely top class since he's come to the FA. He's not only concerned with the seniors and the U21s, he's very interested in what's going on below and we communicate all the time. Joe Mattock was originally in the U19 squad for this game but as Stuart had a couple of injuries, he's called him up to the U21s. Danny Wellbeck has also made the leap from U19 to U21."

Unfortunately the game in Bournemouth didn't prove to be the advert for the England U19 side many had hoped it might have been. Fans who were talking about England on the way to the game would have left reflecting only on Spain and the fluidity of their performance. A host of Spain players shone across the pitch, while the England boys seemed to be merely chasing shadows. Iago Falque (Juventus), Jordi Pablo (Villarreal), Francisco Merida (Arsenal) and Raul Ruiz (Hercules CF) are amongst the individuals that stood out for Spain and would get my recommendation as hot prospects for the future on the back of this match.

England U19s fell behind after just five minutes of the game when Juventus starlet Iago Falque tapped home following a goalkeeping mistake by Huddersfield Town's Alex Smithies. A sublime 30-yard strike from Jordi Pablo doubled Spain's advantage before the break and Raul Ruiz completed a great night for Spain on 63 minutes, capitalising on hesitancy in the England back line to make it 3-0. A bad night for England was compounded when Andrew Tutte was given a straight card for a foul on Ruiz, having come on to the pitch just five minutes earlier as a second half substitute.

Despite the disappointing result, England U19 coach Brian Eastick remains confident about the future of his country's future at this level. "We had a full house at Colchester recently, 18,000 fans at Doncaster last year and another full house tonight. It shows people really want to come and watch U19 football, and the players respond to that."

"Our job (management of U19s) mirror club football in that we are here to give the youngsters as much experience as possible by playing them regularly and developing them so they can move up to the next level, be it the U21 or the seniors. While I'm disappointed with the scoreline tonight, but we've learnt a lot against a quality opposition. We have a lot of quality in our squad and it's a shame we couldn't show that more tonight."

Eastick singled two Everton youngsters out for individual praise following the Spain match - Dan Gosling and Jack Rodwell. "Dan Gosling is a class player" said Eastick. "I took him off after 65 minutes because I was conscious that he had played for Everton's first team last weekend. I don't know whether David Moyes is going to start him in the next game, he might well do. Jack Rodwell was absolutely outstanding too, in fact I thought he was our best player tonight. These performances are exactly the reason why Everton's have these boys in their first team squad."

On another night, many more players in the England U19's team have the ability to command similar praise. Danny Drinkwater is an industrious right-sided midfielder, with great crossing ability and a good turn of pace. Leicester youngster Ashley Chambers will surely be expecting to be plying his trade at a higher level than League One in the not to distant future and Jack Wilshere, Henri Lansbury and Gavin Hoyte have already shown in recent Carling Cup matches for Arsenal that they could be the real deal for club and country.

For the meantime, sights at U19 level are focused firmly on England's Elite Qualifying Group, which sees the Three Lions come up against Scotland, Slovakia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to secure a place at this summer's European Championships in the Ukraine.

"Let's hope we can get through our qualifying group," said Eastick. "We need to get through this Elite Group to give our players a proper feel of a competitive international tournament. I am confident we can get there".

In the long run, and despite a bad result on this occasion, England has a bright future with home-grown talent breaking through the ranks at Premiership clubs some feared had become the exclusive reserve of players from overseas.

Andy Greeves

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