Under-23s coach Nicky Eaden on the goalless draw against Crystal Palace at the Alan Higgs Centre...
City’s development side were held to a goalless draw at the Alan Higgs Centre against Crystal Palace, in what was a game limited to very few chances in front of goal.
In a reshuffled team due to the Sky Blues Checkatrade Trophy quarterfinal tie against Swansea City this evening, City struggled to break down a well organised Palace defence.
Under-23s coach Nicky Eaden was left frustrated as his side failed to make a substantial impression. “There wasn’t a lot of goalmouth action and there was a real slow tempo to the game. I was asking the players to move it quickly and simply and they didn’t seem to want to do that,” He said.
“It was slightly disjointed, we had three trialists in there, three or four Under-18s and a lot of them have never played together, so it was a little disjointed from start to finish.
In what is the nature of development football, The under-23s have struggled to field a consistent team in recent weeks, with several players involved with the first team.
Eaden admits it is a positive that players are being given the chance to progress if they perform for the 23s side.
“It’s no coincidence that earlier in the season when we had a really good run we had the group together regularly, almost constantly picking a similar team and training together
“We’ve kind of gone away from that a little bit because of the situation at the club, in a good way because a few of the 23s have impressed the manager and made that step up into the first team,”
He added: “The likes of Ben Stevenson and George Thomas have really made an impression and are firmly within the managers thoughts when selecting his XI each game.”