Former Newcastle United academy player Jeff Henderson has urged the club’s under-23 players to go out and get some first team experience under their belts.
He says that the players will experience a different type of physicality when they start to experience senior first team football, and has urged them to go out and experience it – as staying with the under-23s is not going to help them develop.
Henderson adds that the youth players are very good on the ball when starring for the under-23s, but he thinks that coming face to face with the challenges of first team football is essential.
“If they are whinging about physicality, there are going to get a lot worse if they go on and progress into men’s football. It’s a tough environment and it will be tough for every single one of them to make it to the very top. It was just a little taster of what men’s football is all about,” he told the Chronicle.
“It’s a privileged position and they have some wonderful opportunities ahead of them, so they have to make sure they take them. They need to go out and get experience of men’s football as quickly as possible. Don’t sit in the under-23s playing that kind of football.
“It’s all about development, and they need to get out there and experience what the game is about. That will bring them on even more and you can see they are technically good on the ball but playing in the under-23s league won’t help. They need to play against men in competitive games and learn what challenges the game can offer.”
OPINION
Despite the fact that Henderson never made it as a senior player himself – the closest he got was getting called up to the first team bench for a cup win over Nottingham Forest in 2011 – he is absolutely spot on with this message to the under-23s. There are some talented players in this set up at the moment, so the best thing they can do is push for a loan move this summer. Elias Sorensen got the chance to impress on loan at Blackpool recently, but it did not go according to plan. Perhaps this was his inability to cope with the physicality of senior first team football, just as Henderson pointed out? Either way, staying in the under-23s is not going to help them in the long-term. A few of them will no doubt end up getting released by Newcastle, but there will be a few who go on to better things. They should heed Henderson’s advice, as it may really help them in the long-run.
