'We want to match last season's success'

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Men's under-21s head coach Shannon Ruth looks ahead to the first game of the Premier League 2 season.

2024-08-16T13:30+01:00

Jamie Mullins hopes to play his part for the under-21s against West Ham United tonight.

Men’s under-21s boss Shannon Ruth wants his team to try and reach the same heights they achieved last season, as they start their Premier League 2 campaign tonight against West Ham.

Having reached the quarter-finals of the EFL Trophy, the knockout stages of Premier League 2 and had under-21 players in first-team matchday squads nearly 100 times, 2023/24 can go down as a hugely successful campaign.

“We're off the back of a successful season as an academy in terms of first-team experience last year," Ruth said. "As an under-21s group we had 94 appearances in the matchday squad for our first team.

“We also had a nice finish to last season by winning the Hong Kong 7s tournament.

“So we're excited to try and do that again, to get near to that level of success and look at the next batch of players to hopefully come through and this time play under Fabian Hurzeler.”

Ruth is confident that his team have prepared well ahead of tonight’s game against the Irons.

“We're excited for the start of the new season – I'm pleased with how pre-season has gone. We finished it really strongly with two really good performances against Brentford and Crystal Palace.

“We know at this time of year the team can change and evolve with players going out on loan.

“We’ve still got a couple of players that we'd like to help secure a loan opportunity, but in terms of the group itself and the group that's going to stay with us - certainly until January - we're pleased where we're at.”