ACADEMY: Dubai experience should pay off

Apr 1 2008 by Chris Wright, Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL under-18s return back to Premier Academy League action when they face Derby County at the Kirkby Academy this Saturday following their successful trip to Dubai.

Hugh McAuley’s side have just three matches left and will look to end the season on a high.

The squad will now focus on those after they returned from the five-team Under-19s Jered Tournament where they won two and lost two of their four matches in Abu Dhabi.

In the opening match England youth international Nathan Eccleston fired a superb hat-trick against Brazilian side Fluminese, but Liverpool lost an entertaining match 4-3 and also had Danish keeper Martin Hansen sent off.

Liverpool won their second match 1-0 against hosts Al Wahda with a goal from Adam Pepper helped the Reds record their only win in the tournament so far when they beat local side Al Wahda.

But they suffered a heavy defeat in the third match when they had another man sent off, new Swiss under-16s player Hatim Kasami, before losing 5-0 against Spanish side Atletico Madrid.

Liverpool bounced back in their final match when they beat Italian side Genoa 3-1 with goals from Eccleston, Sean Highdale and Astrit Ajdarevic.

Coach McAuley said: “We enjoyed the tour very much and it gave the lads some really good experience.

“They were all excellent games against tough opposition. They were under-19s teams and we were only U18s. We also had five under-16s players with us like Adam Pepper, Jack Metcalf and Michael Roberts, while the likes of Gary Mackay-Steven and Steve Irwin were missing as they went with the reserves to Dallas.

“So we went very much under-strength but we did okay apart from the one game when we went down to 10 men after 10 minutes against a very good Atletico Madrid side. That was no disgrace against a much more experienced and older side. Overall it was a very good experience.”

Having returned last week Liverpool are raring to get back to league action with three games left against Derby, Leeds and a fixture with north west section leaders Manchester City to be arranged.