If we wind the clock back to January 2023, Josh Duffus had just come back to play for the U18s after a long-term injury lay-off and now, 12 months later, he’s made his first-team debut at AEK Athens in the Europa League.
Such stories highlight to our current U18 squad the fantastic pathways that exist at the club, be it a promotion to the first-team squad – where we’ve had a number of former U18s players on Roberto De Zerbi’s bench of late – or players having successful loan periods at league clubs across the country. We are always telling our boys that this is a brilliant time to be a young player at Brighton, and I feel that they are starting to understand what a special place and time this is.
On the pitch, our year started with defeat at Manchester City in the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup – a tough opponent that went on to win the Premier League U18 North title last season.
Although a disappointing result, it proved to be a catalyst to a positive second half of the 2022/23 season. Indeed, we went on to have some excellent results against Arsenal (3-1), Fulham (3-2), Chelsea (3-2), Norwich (2-1), and the most exciting being the victory away against West Ham, coming back from 3-1 down to win 4-3, to prevent them from winning the title on that day. Good results against Tottenham and West Brom helped us to finish the season in the top half of the table, which was an excellent achievement. We felt as if all the hard work we’d put in during the opening half of the season had paid off, which was a good feeling.
At the U18 age group, winning is important, but the development of players and people is key. Josh Duffus is just one of a number of individual success stories of players from our age group who have developed this past year, another being Jack Hinshelwood, of course, who featured in our FA Youth Cup run last season and who recently scored his first Premier League goal in the 2-1 win against Brentford. This season there have already been appearances in the U21s for Joe Knight, Charlie Tasker, Sahil Bashir and Ronnie Gorman (all four appearing in the recent 4-0 win against MK Dons in the EFL Trophy, with both Joe and Sahil scoring).
A new season, of course, brings changes. There are those players who have made the step-up as mentioned, those who have come into the group from the U16s, and those who have left the club for pastures new. Another change has been that of Inigo Calderon’s appointment as U18 head coach this summer. A legend as an Albion player, he went back to Spain to take his pro licence and gain a psychology degree. He also worked at Alaves as U18s and U23s coach over a four-year period, so to have him back with all his experiences has been invaluable for our boys. He is really driving the standards and what it means to be an Albion player, and the boys have really kicked on as a result.
Having Calde back really has been a breath of fresh air, and we’ve complemented each other well. As I’ve been at the club nearly three years now, I have a good understanding of the workings of the academy and an in-depth knowledge of the players. We’ve also been working hard together to implement the Brighton philosophy, and a lot of work goes into planning and reviewing our sessions so that ultimately we train how we play and then we play how we train.
With Calde leading the way, it was only natural that we should start the current campaign with pre-season training in Alicante, the highlight being a good 2-0 win against Murcia. We then started the league season really well with a 4-3 home win against West Brom and we remained unbeaten for the opening month of the season.
An indifferent run of results followed, but we returned to winning ways with an excellent 4-2 win against league leaders Fulham. We have progressed nicely in the U17s Cup and have beaten Harrogate Town with a really professional performance to make the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup.
To help us achieve our success on and off the field, there is an excellent multidisciplinary team working with the squad; and I would like to take this opportunity to highlight Cal Brashil (S&C), Ruwindi Setunge (physio), Jake Philips (analyst), Shona Richards (player care), Chelcie Galway, Sami El-Ebd and Nathan Marshall (education team) and, of course, our fantastic goalkeeper coaches, Owen Fisher and James Granger, for all their excellent work undertaken over the course of the year. We are supported constantly by Ian Buckman, who has overseen an amazing couple of years since his appointment as academy manager in 2021.
We are now looking forward to 2024 with plenty of optimism, given the excellent foundations that have been put in place and which made it a positive year for the U18s group.