'Under-21s have made great progress so far this season'

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Charlie Hanson

2024-12-22T06:00+00:00

Shannon Ruth's squad are chasing success on four fronts in the second half of the season. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

Our men's under-21s round off the calendar year with a Premier League International Cup match against Sporting Lisbon on Sunday.

Under-21s head coach Shannon Ruth has reflected on the first half of the season and the successes of the campaign so far.

Shannon, how has the first half of the season been?

I have been pleased with the form of the team. We had a period where we won 13 games out of 16.

The group are a real mixture. You've got some older players that didn't secure the loans that they were after, who have come in and put their disappointments aside and been super professional and really impacted the group. You've got some first-year scholars in the group who are performing and really excelling at the level. You've got a group who have just come up from the under-18s who have been in and out of the team but have really contributed.

Josh Duffus celebrates with Harry Howell. 📷 by James Boardman.

So for what would have been seen as a complex situation, the players have actually come together very nicely. The group’s performances and some of the results we've gotten has been super, super pleasing.

That ‘complex situation’ you mentioned, how has that been to manage?

I've got to say because the boys and how they are, it's been relatively straightforward. The older boys who haven't secured loans, they are players that I've worked with for five, six years in some cases, so the relationship that I have with them is pretty strong.

Ultimately the whole group knows that if the team does well, then they as individuals will do well. For anybody to reach their goal, whatever their goal is when the season starts, the team performing well contributes to that personal goal.

We drive that message a lot, that whatever it is you want from this year, whatever it is you want from the next window, if it's a debut this year, all those things only get closer if you take care of the every day business, how you train and then how you perform.

Fabian Hurzeler watches on as Jamie Mullins plays a pass. 📷 by James Boardman.

It makes no sense to be disappointed, it makes no sense to not train well. What you invest every day, you get back out. I've got a really good bunch of lads and we have a wonderful pathway here. Every single player has trained with the first team this season. In the international break, Fabian took the under-21s.

So that pathway and opportunity for young players is still there and is really, really powerful for us – it’s a powerful message for us. That keeps the players really hungry.

When your team has been on good winning runs, has it almost been more difficult to keep that going than bring a losing run to a stop?

Yes. When you're speaking to the group, you almost want to use a little bit of reverse psychology, ‘people expect us to drop off now, don't let it be today’.

Gordon Greer is our pathway development manager, overseeing the players out on loan. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

People are afraid to speak about winning when it comes to development, but it absolutely has to be on people's minds. When you have an under-21s group, I'm hopefully preparing them to work with Fabian or Gordon Greer. So we can't be purely focussed on development or have the mentality that it's okay to lose. In January, they could go out on loan and they have to win.

So here we instil that you have to win. How we win is always the imperative thing – the style we play, the philosophy we adhere to. We never put the development of somebody behind winning or ahead, that's not how it works, they go hand-in-hand. It's our job to make sure that we can develop the players and get a winning mentality. It's those things working together that helps us prepare players for the next step.

There have been some great academy achievements already in the season for players both here and out on loan, how pleasing has that been?

It’s really rewarding. I look at three areas to assess the success of the under-21s.

Firstly, it's to get match day involvement for our first team – this year so far we've been really fortunate to be able to do that. We’ve had Ruairi McConville and Jacob Slater on the bench for the first time.

Ruairi McConville has been a regular in the first team squad in recent weeks. 📷 by James Boardman.

Then there is the loan pathway. Eight players went out in the summer so that’s really good progress for us. To see them playing senior football up and down the English pyramid is really rewarding.

Then it’s to excel here, to be progressing in competitions and having a team that look like a Brighton team.

They're the three areas that are really important to me and the staff and this half of the season. We have to be pleased with the contribution in all those three areas.