Dave Challinor gives his take on very young Stockport side thrashed 6-1 by Blackburn

Dave Challinor gives his take on a very young Stockport side getting thrashed 6-1 by Blackburn in the Carabao Cup First Round.

Sammie Szmodics continued his impressive form, netting scoring three goals in his last two matches, guiding Blackburn to a 6-1 victory at Edgeley Park.

The previous season’s Championship top scorer, with there much speculation over his future at the club,  opened his account in the league against Derby County on Friday night and followed up with two additional goals within the first thirty minutes against the League One newcomers.

By half time, Blackburn were well ahead and already effectively sealed their place in the next round, with Andreas Weimann and Yuki Ohashi contributing two more goals against a Stockport team that made ten changes from their recent win over Cambridge, including the introduction of four young debutants.

Among them, 16-year-old defender Nathan Mapengu who also scored for the Hatters, but further goals from Senegalese striker Makhtar Gueye and Jack Vale ensured a comprehensive win for John Eustace’s side.

Stockport were forced to field a weakened team due to their injury crisis with the likes of Nick Powell, Micky Mellon, Lewis Fiorini and Tanto Olaofe and 10 other key players unable to play. New club captain Lewis Bate was also unavailable having suffered a knock.

Stockport: Hinchliffe, Mapengu (Lawless-Williams 82′), Hughes (Camps 39′), Touray, Okeke, Onyango, Bailey, Redshaw (Cina 45′), Gardner, Williams (Watson 45′), Fevrier (Lewis 83′)

Subs: Diamond, Camps, Barry, Metcalfe, Cina, Gardner, Lawless-Williams, Lewis, Watson

Blackburn: Pears, Brittain (Duru 45′), Carter (McFadzean 45′), Batth, Pickering, Weimann (Gueye 63′), Buckley, Tronstad (Travis 63′), Sigurdsson, Szmodics (Vale 63′), Ohashi

Subs: McFadzean, Hyam, Gueye, Dolan, Rankin-Costello, Hilton, Travis, Vale, Duru

Interviewer: Well Dave what have you learned from tonight’s game and some of the youngsters that play for you tonight what have you learned about them?

Dave: Hard to reflect so soon after um the final whistle it’s a huge learning curve for them and what they take out of tonight in certain aspects will dictate how far they go whether they use it as motivation to understand the levels that you need to be at even to play at the level that we’re playing at and in some instances a lot a lot far far below that so we always going to be a big ask. For me what you want to see is go make an impact so again Bruno should never have been booked in the in the first bit of the second half but go put someone on the back side I don’t again as much as you have respect for respect for teams and respect for opposition cuz they’re a higher level they couldn’t stop us running competing tackling doing all them bits that’s the minimum you have to do I think he sort of showed that in the in the second half in glimpses in instances if they’ all done that then I don’t know maybe it’ got a little bit more feisty maybe that would have helped us a little bit there’s always going to be ones reacted different ways did some of them look like rabbit headlights yeah absolutely did some of them come out with it with some credit did they make mistakes yeah of course they did but I expected that um again you’d hope that the senior ones within there would would be able to to organise and to guide and to help um and when you take everything away regardless of what the score line is it’s going to be a great experience for them and one that they remember whether that’s fondly or not so fondly, but you still need to do the basics I we’ve conceded from four set pieces and you have to be able to do your jobs regardless of what level you’re playing at so that’ll be one that they can learn from

Interviewer: And that’s naivity is it Dave I mean things like the quick throw in the short corner those the goals you’ve conceded from those it’s not so much quick throwing

Dave: It’s not tracking a runner um again whether whether you again whether you learn from that cuz that it doesn’t matter what age you are if you don’t track a runner then whether you’re 17 or 35 you’re going to get punished so if you don’t do that the likely it is that your career won’t go where you want it to go if you can’t Mark defensively in a box in the box from a from a corner if again Jid 6’2, 6’3, not good enough defence to be marking it’s something we’ve spoken about he’s going to have to be able to do that, you can’t have somebody of his his size that can’t head the ball or can’t do do their job because that’s an asset that he has that he needs to be able to do now again that comes with experience around movement and how you deal with that sort of thing and practice not been asked to do it before not done it before in youth team football as much but an area that you need to work on and that be same with all defenders, you have to find ways to deal with what opposition opposition are doing so yeah they’ll be huge learning if they want to take from it what they need to but I think we end up with I don’t know seven Academy players or eight Academy players have played tonight, so again were we expecting the outcome? We probably were you have the hope that isn’t the isn’t going to be the case but I suppose somewhere take the complete optimism away from it the reality of it is that they’ve played a very strong Championship team and we’ve played in large parts at a youth team so that the gap was always going to be enormous.

Interviewer: Talk to me a little bit about Nathan Mapengu because I thought of all the the young lads who impressed tonight I thought he really shone tonight, and I know he’s let six goals in his part the defence has let six in but I just thought when he’s got three internationals running at him at various stages of the game and he’s got his goal at the Cheadle end as well I thought he he stood brave

Dave: Yeah listen there’s there’s there’s loads to come from and again he is a first year scholar so very very naive just out of school if you like and dealing with experienced players again we played in the a small part in the game at Carlisle in the friendly switched off for the second goal he’s going to you have to learn you’re going to you’re going to be in positions where unless you’re a goalkeeper you are that last line of that defence so looking at um looking and dealing with players movement at the level he just played that will undoubtedly improve him. What you have to do is not be lazy or sloppy and not think that because that doesn’t happen every week in the games that you play that you don’t need to don’t need to improve and don’t need to get better but for all of them especially the defenders and across the board really it they’re still working on the basics of what men’s football looks like so they’ll still be working around the pre-season stuff they’ll still be looking at patterns that they need to do but they need to again from a defender perspective around how you play out how you defend one v one your aerial stuff dealing with runs in behind communication is massive, again it’s a almost like a lost all

Interviewer: You talk a lot about this

Dave: Listen our senior lads are as bad so I’m not like pointing the finger anywhere where where it shouldn’t be pointing at and I’ve said that again if you can as a young player if you can almost make yourself unique in terms especially playing at the back that way if I’m a centre back then in my eyes I’ve got nine players in front of me that I can manipulate to make my job as easy as possible by talking to them and getting the positions that they needs to be on

Interviewer: Onyango I think tried that a little bit didn’t he?

Dave: Yeah a little bit um but again is young but I think regardless of of of who you are and where you are that that’s something if I’m a centre back or I’m someone plays on the back line I can see plays in front of me I’m going to have to utilize them and help them as best as possible it’s something that like I say doesn’t happen enough but if like the young ones can take some something from that and it it adds to their game and ultimately tonight becomes a useful exercise for us despite what the result was

Interviewer: You didn’t need any more injuries to your senior players but you’ve got one Sam Hughes is he okay

Dave: We’ll see it’s a we’re hoping it’s more of a kick than than anything else so we’ll see how he is how he is tomorrow yeah listen the fact that we can see is is relevant in the grand scheme of things you can analyse and will analyse goals because he disappointed with the goals if if we’d have been um I suppose ripped apart in terms of brilliant play maybe and I expected that to happen at times it didn’t happen as often as I thought I thought think to be honest or or would thought before the game and we’ve can see some really poor goals from from set pieces suppose that’s the that’s the frustrating bit but there’s there’s huge learning in it

Interviewer: Fans are great tonight stuck with them encourage the youngsters they’ll be even better I think on Saturday 4,000 of them going to Blackpool are you looking forward to that as an occasion now

Dave: Yeah listen as much as I said I would love to have come tonight and played a played a stronger team and had a right go but was probably at the start of the night one of them nights that we just wanted out the way um and and we need to like I say look after the ones we’ve got go to Blackpool on the back of a win on Saturday and look to back that up so no it’ll be great it’ll be a tough game brilliant our fans have traveled in in the numbers and fingers crossed we see a performance that can get us another three points and and consolidate the start of the season we’ve have

Blackburn boss John Eustace said: “It was really pleasing and I thought we were very professional.

“Stockport made some changes, we made six changes ourselves and the lads really set the tone from minute one.

“It’s always about the squad and we got vital minutes into those boys tonight. Their level of professionalism was outstanding.

“The most important thing was to come here, be competitive and set the tone, which we did.

“We worked very hard for those opportunities and chances and the boys are very clinical at the moment, which we’ve asked for.

“You can see that we’ve brought two or three more players in this season who can put the ball in the back of the net,” he added, paying tribute to the impact the lively Ohashi and Gueye have had since arriving in England.

“We have good options in those forward areas and it’s good that they’re hitting the net at the moment.

“To get both the new strikers off the mark already is really promising.”