Who is the young player to watch during your club's pre-season? 🔵 A David Silva clone at MCFC 🔴 LFC winger with ‘fire whenever he touches the ball’ 🔲 The Geordie Maradona at NUFC 🔺 High hopes at AFC for Patino 🦊 LCFC’s mini Modric
Dale Taylor made his full international debut with Northern Ireland at just 17 last season but, while the now 18-year-old is somebody Nottingham Forest are very excited about, it may be too much to ask for the striker to push his way into the first team in the coming months.
At 17, Ballard may be the next young player that supporters may need to tilt their sunglasses and pay close attention to this summer.Alfie Devine could easily be the name here, but given he’s a touch older and has a bit more first-team experience, I’ll go for Dane Scarlett. The 20-year-old attacker had interest in January but it was felt he would be better suited to continuing his development with the under-23s. It is likely Okoflex will be loaned out this summer but he has travelled for the squad for their pre-season training camp in Scotland. Providing he seizes his opportunity, it would give manager David Moyes food for thought.
Last season, there were high hopes after he featured and scored in pre-season but his season was plagued with injury problems and he barely featured for the under-23s.