NORTHERN IRELAND vs ENGLAND

Swain revels in squad depth

by Glenn Lavery

Thursday, 04 November, 2010

Head Coach says his pool of players is bigger than ever.

You can watch this match live on Sky Sports 2 from 7.30pm

Kenny Swain has taken his England U16 side to Belfast where they are currently preparing to take on Northern Ireland in their second match of The Victory Shield, and the Head Coach believes there is a depth to this year group that he has not experienced before.

Only eight players remain from the squad that lost 4-0 to Wales last month but Swain said the ten changes have nothing to do with the scoreline or the individual performances in that defeat at Haverfordwest.

“We have got some very good players in this age group - as we have had for the last few years, to be honest,” he said.

“The boys who haven’t been re-called from that Wales game is no reflection on the score or the performances from last month. This is actually the most open group of U16s that I’ve had at my disposal in my time with The FA. In previous years we’d try and look at about 25-28 players over these three Victory Shield games, but with this year we could go well into the thirties.

“The change around in personnel has got absolutely nothing to do with the last result; there would have been eight or nine changes had we won 4-0.”

However, despite Swain’s delight at the number of players he can call upon, he is keen for his side to learn from last month’s defeat. England conceded the first goal on seven minutes and found themselves four down just 24 minutes later, Wales aided by two Declan John penalties.

The game had been effectively ended as a contest before the half-time whistle, but, to their credit, England put in a far more resolute performance after the restart and had chances to reduce the deficit and now Swain hopes to build on that second-half performance at The Oval.

“There are reasons why you play well and reasons why you don’t play well,” he began. “I was staggered by some of the statistics from the Wales game. It was 65-35 per cent possession in our favour, but when I thought about it, yeah, we did have a lot of possession but we weren’t very effective with it and that’s a lesson in itself.

“It’s not enough just to keep the ball; you’ve got to keep it with some purpose,” Swain continued. “We fell down against Wales because of that, not because of our defending. But we work on possession in training as a part of our daily diet and the players have trained really well this week, we’ve been very happy with them.

“They have taken on board what we’ve said this week in team meetings and on the training pitch and we are now all looking forward to the game, as we always do.”

England have had the upper hand in this fixture over the years, including a 6-0 victory in 2008, but the former Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest full-back believes this season’s encounter will be a completely different story.

“Historically, in these Victory Shield matches there aren’t usually many goals between the teams and I’d expect this game to be no different," Swain said. "Northern Ireland are the home side and they will be looking for the win in front of their own crowd and it gives our lads another chance to experience playing in front of that type of atmosphere and that’s what The Victory Shield is all about – it gives these young players a great chance to develop as players both on and off the pitch.

“It’s not just about the football, it’s about coping with a different environment, adjusting to a different training schedule, moving from hotel to hotel, travelling to different countries and we must never lose sight of the fact that they are still young players. This is a five-day event, not just an 80-minute game event, that’s just the icing on the cake.”

Squad in full