Leeds academy coach Blunt impressed with Galway Cup outing

On the second day of the Macron Galway Cup, Leeds United’s 2002 Elite squad were hoping to continue their great run of form that saw them win both their opening games against North Tipperary and a tough North-Eastern Counties side. They did what they set out to do and put three past Mayo without reply in their early match before beating Clare by a scoreline of three goals to one later on.

Along with Scott Gardner, Jason Blunt, the current U18’s coach at Leeds United, was in the dugout to oversee the squad being put to the test. After coming through the Leeds academy to make his debut under Howard Wilkinson, Jason later returned to coach underage sides before becoming the U18 coach and the Development Squad manager in the pre-season of the 2014/15 season. During the season, he became the Head of Academy Coaching when Neil Redfearn became manager of the first team and also assisted the former Leeds boss during the last few games of the Championship season. After a summer reshuffle, Jason returned to coaching the under 18’s.

After the game against Clare, I spoke to Jason Blunt and on how the Leeds team have handled their opposition so far, he said, “It’s a different type of game we’ve found over here, we’re not used to teams predominately being quite so direct instead of trying to pass it through us so that’s been a difficult challenge compared to what we’re used to.”

In their second game on Wednesday, Leeds went three-nil up against North-Eastern Counties before conceding two late goals, that NEC’s play deserved it must be said, and while Jason found the goals to be “a bit sloppy”, he was pleased that the team “seemed to have learnt from that” and he added that, “they’re defending a lot better now and we seem to have sorted it out.”

The coaching staff have been pleased with how the squad have got on, especially given that seven of the sixteen players in the squad were born in 2003 and so are playing a year up. Despite being a year behind their opponents, Jason said “it doesn’t mean we’re not capable because, in and out of possession, they’ll have a good understanding of the game and technically they’re all excellent.”

An interesting note to take when watching the Leeds team play was how often players changed positions or roles and how every game the tactics were tweaked. After I raised this, Jason said that the coaches “just like to try and put them out of their comfort zone.” If games aren’t going their way, the team can easily shift their style of play and shape as Jason explains.

“We changed it this morning as we were struggling with the pace of the game so we went 4-1-4-1 and then this afternoon we played with a diamond and overloaded the midfield to try and get an extra pass in,” before he added on his players’ adaptability that, “the boys are quite capable of playing in different positions, which is good.”

The academy at Leeds United has been shown to be successful with at least five academy products, Lewis Cook, Sam Byram, Charlie Taylor, Alex Mowatt, and Kalvin Phillips, to be involved in the first team this upcoming season while others, like Lewis Walters and Lewis Coyle, will be in and around the squad and Jason spoke of how this influenced the bigger picture.

He said that although they lose the odd players to other clubs, though “not bigger clubs”, he says, “as there’s nobody bigger than Leeds United as far as we’re concerned”, the players “know there is something at the end of the road, the kids here in the U12’s and U13’s, they know that if they stay with us, they’ve got a great chance of being in the first team and that’s why we do ever so well but credit to the [first team] boys, they play some great stuff.”

With stories going about that Leeds owner Massimo Cellino wanted to close the academy below u16 level after hearing a young player left for another club, you’d have wanted him to be amongst the spectators over these past two days in Salthill Devon.  Having seen the team play in their four matches so far, I can only repeat my sentiments after the interview; that the future is very bright indeed.