Colchester United: Youngsters creating ‘no fear’ mentality, says head coach Ben Garner
Colchester United boss Ben Garner has backed the fearless approach resulting from having such a youthful team.
The U’s have the youngest goalkeeper in the English Football League in 19-year-old Owen Goodman.
And in striker Bradley Ihionvien, also 19, they have a player already attracting attention from bigger clubs.
“You’ve got players who are still learning, but the flip side is you have players that have no fear,” head coach Garner told BBC Essex Sport.
Colchester fielded a team with an average age of 22 for last weekend’s 2-0 League Two win over Tranmere Rovers, with 18-year-old on-loan centre-back Zach Mitchell making his debut.
And Garner believes young players coming in and playing with bravery and positivity can lift everyone else.
“It was certainly an aim in terms of the recruitment to bring the age of the squad down, as a club that’s the direction we wanted to go in,” he said.
“We didn’t want to go too old, taking players towards the end of their careers and maybe physically deteriorating.
“The hardest players to recruit are the ones who are experienced but have still got good years ahead of them. The middle ground is probably the players everyone wants. It then becomes more about budgets and finances.”
Ihionvien made his EFL debut as a substitute against Hartlepool towards the end of the 2021-22 season, but had to wait until the current campaign for another chance – and has scored twice in the last three games.
“Brad is a great kid with a fantastic attitude. We’re challenging him all the time and he’s not one that will get carried away,” Garner said.
“Any player of his age who comes in and scores a couple of goals so quickly, there’s always going to be attention and speculation around them and we’re hoping he’ll kick on and score plenty of goals yet.”
Goodman, who joined the U’s on a season-long loan from Crystal Palace, returned early from an England Under-20 training camp to play against Tranmere, his seventh appearance of the season and his second clean sheet.
“My Dad tells me every week that I’m the youngest keeper playing in the league so I should be proud of myself. I just want to get better every day, every game,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of talented players. People look at our age and think, ‘They’re young, we can run all over them,’ but we’re physically strong, we’ve got a variety of players in the squad, older players, younger players.
“You have to go out every game being fearless – the moment we have fear is the moment we start making mistakes. Younger players is key to that.
“We’re still learning but can’t be afraid to make mistakes, being fearless allows us to go out and play our game. “
Colchester are at home to third-placed Mansfield Town on Saturday.
