Ashworth: Albion youngsters could get Euros chance

Technical director Dan Ashworth says that the delay to the European Championships until 2021 could improve the prospects of playing in the tournament for a number of Albion’s young players.

Alex Stedman

2020-04-12T08:00:00Z

Dan Ashworth.

The tournament, originally scheduled for June, has been delayed by 12 months because of the coronavirus outbreak.

He said, “We do have a lot of promising young players and we’re excited about their future.

“We have a lot of good Football League loans, as well as the European ones too and players like Leo Ostigard who is captain of the Norway under-21s, Tudor Baluta, who’s the same with Romania, and Jan Mlakar who is featuring a lot for Slovenia.

“I would imagine in the majority of those cases this summer may have come too soon for them on a senior international level, although Aaron Connolly is on the fringes of the Ireland side.

“But with the delay until next summer we could see a lot of them featuring should their countries qualify next year.”

Ashworth revealed on Thursday that he’d been in touch with a number of players recently, with the squad having been given a break from home training until at least 1st May.

One of those is Argentinian midfielder Alexis Mac Allister, who arrived back on the south coast in January and made his Albion debut the last time Graham Potter’s side were in action in a 0-0 draw with Wolves at Molineux on 7th March.

“Alexis is in England and is one of a number of players who I’ve been checking on. He’s only been in the country a few months,” said Ashworth.

“He had some family over before the lockdown started, so it’s good he has had those people around him.

“He has support from our welfare team and logs on to the online training sessions, as well as having some equipment he can use.

“Sometimes you worry about people who are isolating on their own, especially young people, so that’s one of the things we make sure we take care of.”

“His English is coming along well. He actually started learning the language when we signed him in January 2019.

“His understanding of the language is good and it’s improving all the time.”