Aston Villa News 24/7Last year, as Villa headed out to Spain to compete in the Peace Cup, Martin O’Neill left the trio of Agbonlahor, Milner & Gardner behind as they had been given a little extra time before reporting back after taking part in the European Under-21 Championship.
After spotting that Nathan Delfouneso had also been omitted from the travelling party, and doing a little digging, I found he and Nathan Baker were in Ukraine representing England Under 19′s in their European Championships.
The Under 21 tournament is held every two years, so that won’t affect our build up this year, but the Under 19 version is held every year and both Nathans have just been confirmed in the 18 man squad to travel to Normandy.
England’s group games will be against Austria on July 18th, Holland on July 21st and France (the hosts) on July 24th. The semi-finals are scheduled for July 27th with the final taking place on July 30th. If England make it all the way to the final, as they did last year – losing 2-0 to hosts Ukraine – it’s unlikely that the two players will be available for Villa’s pre-season fixtures until the final game, Valencia at Villa Park on August 6th. It’s possible that they could travel down to the Algarve for the Guadiana Cup game against Benfica, but I doubt that’s likely.
With the World Cup still in action and following England’s appalling display, it’s difficult for me to begrudge two of our players taking part in this competition. In fact, it’s probably very good for their development in the longer term. On the other hand, Delfouneso is very much on the fringe of the Aston Villa first team now and I would imagine MON would be far more willing to get him on the pitch earlier in the season on the back of a strong pre-season showing. Which is to say, less likely without a decent pre-season with the rest of the team.
However, that’s idle speculation on my part and, in any case, the Europa League play-off matches will be played on August 19th & 26th and I’d be very surprised if Delfouneso wasn’t given a good run out in those games, assuming he’s fit and available.
MON has already made it quite clear that he had intended to use the Europa League to give some of the periphery players games last season and intends to do the same again this time out. It’s therefore very much in Nathan’s own interests to go all out to make sure we don’t fall at the first hurdle this time. If we can get into the group stages this season, it almost guarantees 6 games that young striker can expect some significant pitch time.
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7 Comments to “England Calls – Delfouneso Likely To Miss Pre-Season Again”
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No disrespect to the lower level clubs, but whilst I see your point about MON wanting to see them close up and often, even though it’s lower level,I think this competition ought to be much better for the kids than playing friendlies, tbh.
And surely MON will be able to watch the videos?
I saw there was speculation about some prem clubs refusing to release players.
That’s not a situation I’d like to see at any level (even though we already see certain players throwing sickies for England friendlies).
Particularly when it seems many are in favour of trying to get the kids in to the main England team, as opposed to the “superstars” (sic).
that wasn’t quite what i was driving at, badger.
pre-season is a rare opportunity for the younger players coming through to state their case for the first team. case in point being marc albrighton last summer who was a revelation.
that might not apply so much for nathan since he’s been knocking on the door for a little while now, but imagine if he came out pre-season and bagged a bunch of goals against the likes of feyenoord and benfica!
my point is that MON would be far more likely to use him from the get-go on the back of a strong showing in pre-season and nathan misses that opportunity by being called up.
however, with my england hat on, i’m thrilled that he’ll be in this competition again even if it’s 6 or 7 years earlier in the players’ development that i think england are failing, but that’s another story.
“pre-season is a rare opportunity for the younger players coming through to state their case for the first team. case in point being marc albrighton last summer who was a revelation.”
I agree, Albrighton was a revelation.
But what good did it do him?
Now I don’t think 20 is particularly young if a player is any good.
Given that I think this kid is the best crosser of a ball (whilst actually running at pace) at the club, as much as I love MON, I was gutted at how little time he got on the pitch.
And I’m not talking cup games either.
Same goes for Fonz too.
“my point is that MON would be far more likely to use him from the get-go on the back of a strong showing in pre-season and nathan misses that opportunity by being called up.”
I disagree mate, see above.
Of course, I can see that you play your strongest eleven, but in the Fonz’s case, how you can leave/bring Heskey on when you’re chasing a game and have a kid who can score, I don’t know.
That said, Fonz was given minutes later on in the season.
But not enough for my liking.
You can be too cautious sometimes, I think.
How about Bannan too?
Knocks it about nicely and can see a pass.
Not that I’m agitating, I’m sure MON has his reasons.
Nathan Baker is a different proposition.
I’d always go with experienced defenders over a kid, as long as they’re performing and so I can see Nathan leaving, pretty much regardless of how good he is.
Curtis would be the point in hand.
I can’t believe we’re willing to let him go, regardless of how he can’t keep his trap shut.
That will prove a monumental mistake, worse than Cahill, imo.
Fortunately, it seems the kids are going to the under-19s, no problem;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1292244/Tottenham-Aston-Villa-Premier-League-praised-FA-sparking-club-v-country-row-England-Under-19s.html
“Fortunately, it seems the kids are going to the under-19s, no problem;”
that’s right, there’s a link to the FA’s squad announcement in the third paragraph. it was made while i was in the middle of writing this and wasn’t an issue i was trying to deal with here.
i’m trying my best to avoid this fake club vs country narrative being thrown up by the tabloid media, the DM link you cited is a perfect example.
it’s total bollocks i’m afraid. last year we supplied the same two players to this competition and i only knew because i noticed the fonz was missing from the squad going to spain and literally hunted the information down myself. our own club made no announcement at all!
now, fast forward 12 months, england collapse at the world cup, most people agree that one of the causes is that we don’t develop our youth properly and now we have this storyline of how fantastic ‘arry redknapp et al are for releasing their players for the under 19 euros.
granted, information does flow better these days, both generally and from our club, but it’s still being spun a little in an attempt to show that the EPL doesn’t stymie youth development at the national level.
as for albrighton, i think it did him an enormous amount of good. outside of hardcore reserve & academy followers, he wasn’t on many radars. following the peace cup he received his promotion to full 1st team squad member (#45 to #12 as i recall?), a new contract followed i think too?
he started getting named in the matchday squads more frequently. played some part in the europa tie, but not much. came on against liverpool at anfield.
in fact, he was gently being eased into the team to the point he was in the starting XI against brighton in the FA cup in january, got the assist for the early goal, but picked up that knock and left the field in some visible distress.
that injury knocked him back right at a time when we had a lot of fixture congestion. without that, we probably would have seen more of him in the cups.
personally, i think those peace cup performances made a huge difference to his villa career, but delfouneso is already ahead by the same measure, so it wouldn’t be quite the same, but the principle remains.
as i say, despite how this piece might read, i’m trying to avoid the club vs country angle, i’m simply highlighting that for the second year running delfouneso will be missing pre-season and that can’t be helpful in terms of him trying to force his way into 1st team reckoning right now.
however, it’s a long season and he’ll certainly have the europa league games. i think.
” i’m simply highlighting that for the second year running delfouneso will be missing pre-season and that can’t be helpful in terms of him trying to force his way into 1st team reckoning right now.
however, it’s a long season and he’ll certainly have the europa league games. i think.”
Whereas I’m saying for the second year running Fonz won’t see as many minutes or (closer to how I think), games, as he should.
When it’s blatantly obvious that he’s ready for more, imo, pre-season or not.
I’m not sure how important this pre-season thing is tbh.
In fact, I’d say it’s somewhat meaningless (do you remember my comment on the pre-season training just before we won the league?).
And if MON is as old fashioned as some of us think, he probably agrees with me.
I really wouldn’t be surprised if Heskey is still starting come the new season.
If that’s the case and Fonz isn’t getting plenty of time, I’d be expecting a seed-change in what the fans think/want.
we shall see how his season goes. hey, heskey’s backed him for a breakthrough this year… so there’s that…
I just want to see more Fonz
Give the kid a shot, hell, look at his U19 stats, 10 goals in 22 caps is a pretty good haul, and the Golden boot in European U19 Championship 2009. Also 2 goals from 3 caps in the FA cup last year is another good show when he is given a chance.
Maybe MON needs to look at what he has before going out splashing cash on another “potentially good” striker. I know a lot of Villa fans want to see more Fonz