Stoke City take on Wolves in the under-17s Premier League Cup semi-final tonight
Jaden Dixon, pictured putting in a challenge on Liverpool’s Lewis Koumas, has had an impressive year of development at Stoke City.
Coach David Hibbert admits Stoke City under-17s side will be the underdogs again when they head into a Premier League Cup under-17s semi-final tonight against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
City’s under-17s advanced to the last four by coming through a group stage that included Derby County, Liverpool, and fellow semi-finalists Manchester City, before putting in a convincing display to beat Aston Villa 3-0 in the quarter-finals.
Speaking ahead of the Midlands cup clash at Clayton Wood (6.30pm), Hibbert expressed his desire to see his side – featuring players including Sol Sidibe and tough tie.
“I want to see them succeed in this competition,” said Hibbert. “We had a Jaden Dixon, who have been regulars for the under-21s this season – advance to the final but knows it will be a tough group, we came through the group which had Man City, Liverpool, and Derby, who have got a good 17s and 18s team this year, it was a difficult group to get through, but the lads stuck to it, we qualified quite comfortably in the end.
“Obviously, the quarter-final against Aston Villa was a different challenge, some of these clubs have got massive budgets and we are able to compete with them which is brilliant and shows that we have got some good players here who we believe in.
“This is going to be a tough game, we will be the underdog from an academy perspective because Wolves have spent a hell of a lot of money, as do Manchester City and Chelsea who are the other semi-finalists, so it’s great to be competing against these teams but ultimately when you reach this stage of the competition, of course, you want to reach the final, we had it a few years ago with our under-18s getting to the Premier League Cup final with that group and it stood them in good stead for their careers.
“We want our players to be playing in important games and this is another one of those on Tuesday.”
Stoke’s progress to the latter stages of the tournament has probably come as no surprise to Hibbert and the rest of the academy staff, who targeted Premier League Cup success at the start of the season.
“We prioritised this competition at the start of the season, we knew we were never going to have settled teams with the size of the squad we have got, it’s a small under-21s group this year so a lot of the under-18s and 17s have been involved in that but we prioritised this tournament and tried to bring all those players together if we could.
“There are a few situations where that hasn’t happened, but in the quarter-finals, we did manage that and probably produced our best performance of the season, which shows that we have got some really good young players here who we have really good aspirations for moving forward, it’s great that they are in this situation.”
