Huddersfield Town U18 vs Bradford City U18 on 29 Feb 20 - Match Centre

French youngster speaks ahead of Saturday’s EFL Youth Alliance game

- Under-17s face Bradford City on Saturday 29 February 2020
- Loick Ayina discusses his positive experience on moving to Huddersfield
- Supporters can watch the fixture at PPG Canalside for FREE!

Huddersfield Town Under-17 defender Loick Ayina is happy with how his debut season at the Club is progressing ahead of Saturday’s West Yorkshire derby against Bradford City.

Loick joined Huddersfield Town’s Under-17s squad in the summer of 2019, moving from his hometown near Paris.

The defender was one of three youngsters to move to the country from overseas and admitted that not being on his own helped make the transition from being away from his family easier.

“We talk every day because we have a similar situation, living a long distance from home,” Loick explained to htafc.com.

“I see my family as much as I can when possible, but I speak to them every day.

“It is difficult not being able to see my family, but I want to play football and having Brahima (Diarra) and Gully (Zunda) helps a lot.”

The 16-year-old was quick to note the importance of the opportunity to move to England and how he has had to adapt to the change in the style of football.

“To have the opportunity to come to another country, to England, with another culture is really good because football is my passion – you have to take the opportunity.

“The style of play here is very aggressive and the football is played with a lot of determination, which is really good.”

Loick has impressed with the Terriers, earning the chance to play with the older age groups.

“They are really good players and they help to cheer me on when I make mistakes,” Loick said of the Under-19 group.

“Playing with them helps to make me a better player. It lets me look at what I am doing and how I can getter in the future; they all have good spirit.”

Loick and his Under-17 teammates are back in action on Saturday (29 February 2020) as they take on Bradford City at PPG Canalside.

Kick-off is at 11am and supporters can attend for FREE!

Please note that there is no parking available at PPG Canalside.

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Worthy’s group continue work on high fight zone during Yorkshire derby

- Young Terriers’ improvement and reactive qualities on display
- Town Under-17s work on high fight zone against Bradford City
- Coach Jon Worthington pleased with ‘many’ positives he can take from the game

Town’s Under-17s worked on their high fight zone and reacted positively to two setbacks to win 4-2 against Yorkshire rivals Bradford City on Saturday.

After a scrappy opening 30 minutes it was the away side that took the lead, although the Young Terriers battled back and scored two excellent goals to take the lead into the half.

Utilising the high fight zone being covered in training, Patrick Jones won the ball in the opposition half and equalised, before a quick breakaway was rounded off with a close-range finish from Brahima Diarra.

Bradford equalised after the restart, another setback for Worthy’s side, but again they pulled through and scored twice more through Mustapha Olagunju and Ben Midgley, whose penalty was a direct product of the high fight zone.

The Under-17s Coach was pleased overall with the performance from his group and believes their latest test will be a good one to look back on for the positive aspects, and as a marker for how far they have come over the season.

“I’m really pleased. We’ve been working a lot on the high fight zone and I thought the press was really good; we won the ball high up the pitch, we were aggressive and that was all really important in terms of our learning objective. There will be some good footage from today to reinforce that,” he said.

“It’s always good to react to conceding, first at 1-0 down, then at 2-2 there were positive reactions from us.

“That’s something we’ve improved on as a group as the season’s gone on, having better resilience. Those qualities are really important as well as all the tactical and technical aspects of the game.

“Our training was around the high fight zone, so it was nice to play against a team that tried to play out. We don’t always come up against that week in week out and it allowed us to actually press high and set traps, and we did both of those well today.

“It helps as we’ll be moving onto the out of possession principles really, looking at the mid fight zone over the next two weeks and we’ll see if we can implement that in certain games for the learning and development.”

This will be viewed as a positive step in the Young Terriers’ development, and their next comes in the form of a trip to Crewe Alexandra in the Clarets Cup knockout stages.

Worthy will be preparing his side to play to the strengths they have shown in recent matches and progress to the next round.

Town’s Under-17 team vs Bradford City (4-3-3)

Giosue Bellagambi; Luke Daley, Mustapha Olagunju, Loick Ayina, Josh Austerfield; Myles Bright, Ernaldo Krasniqi (Robson Shipley, 75’), Ben Midgley (c); Sam Sharrock-Peplow (Gulutte Zunda, 75’), Brahima Diarra, Patrick Jones

Unused subs

Michael Roxburgh, Josh Okpolokpo, Darnel Baxter-Alleyne

Scorers

Patrick Jones 31’, Brahima Diarra 45’, Mustapha Olagunju 74’, Ben Midgley 81’

Final score

Huddersfield Town Under-17s 4-2 Bradford City

Huddersfield Town

AYINA READY FOR U17S’ YORKSHIRE DERBY ON SATURDAY!

WORK ON HIGH FIGHT ZONE EVIDENT FROM UNDER-17s