Striker Christian Saydee has set his sights on another FA Youth Cup run and is determined to lead by example for Alan Connell’s young guns.
Saydee is expected to don the captain’s armband when the Cherries host Barnet in the third round at Vitality Stadium tomorrow (7pm kick-off).
The 17-year-old frontman netted a dramatic last-minute winner as the Cherries edged past Mansfield at the same stage of the competition last season (pictured above).
Connell’s team went on to write a new chapter in the Cherries record books after reaching the quarter-final for only the second time in the club’s history.
Saydee, whose form this season has seen him catapulted into Eddie Howe’s first-team squad, is hoping for more of the same, starting out against the Bees.
He told afcb.co.uk: “The FA Youth Cup is always a big occasion for us as a team because we get some good publicity and the first-team coaches and players watch so it’s a good chance to showcase ourselves.
“The boys have been working hard in training and have been doing well in games, so well that we feel it could be another good year in the FA Youth Cup if we work hard and don’t take teams for granted.
“Last season, I looked up to the second years, they helped me through the youth team with their experience. Hopefully, this season, I can be a leader and show it to the first years.”
The Cherries host Barnet on the back of dishing out a 10-1 hammering to Plymouth in the quarter-final of the EFL Youth Alliance Cup on Saturday, with Saydee leading the rout with a hat-trick.
It came just seven days after Saydee had been on the bench for the first team’s Premier League clash against Tottenham at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Saydee, who leads the youth team goal charts with 16, has been training regularly with Howe’s squad and says the experience has been invaluable.
The teenager, who joined the Cherries after being released by Reading in 2018, said: “Training with the first team has been really good but travelling and being on the bench was also a great experience and has really helped my confidence.
“Hopefully, I will get better as a player because it’s high intensity and you have to think quicker.
“I’ve already learned a lot from being around the first team and talking to some of the players, especially the strikers.
“I watch the way Callum Wilson, Dom Solanke and Joshua King apply themselves in training and their movement and the finishing side. It has all been really good and I can only learn from them.”
While the Cherries were exempt until the third round of the FA Youth Cup due to the first-team’s standing in the Premier League, Barnet have played four games to reach this stage for the first time in their history.
Starting out in the second qualifying round, they have seen off Edgeware Town (3-1), Camberley Town (4-1), Dorking Wanderers (4-2) and Cambridge United (3-2). All four games were at home and striker Okem Chime has netted nine goals in the competition, scoring in every round so far.
The winners of tomorrow’s tie will host either Cardiff or Ipswich – boss Connell’s former club – in the fourth round, which must be played by Saturday 18 January 2020.
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