Having spoken about Villa loanee Brad Young again at his press conference yesterday, Carlisle manager Chris Beech put more meat on the bones on a few days that must have left the 18-year-old’s head spinning as he went from playing against Nottingham Forest in an under-23 game on Friday to appearing in the last 20 minutes of a tense League Two fixture for a new club just five days later.
And, to be fair, the detail confirms that one of the standard interview questions when meeting a player for the first time – so, it must have been a bit of a whirlwind – is actually a good question. So there.
Anyway, over to the manager.
“Brad is tenacious and young, but he’s had a really strange week for an 18 year old,” he confirmed. “It was Sunday when it was confirmed he was coming here, but on Friday he played against Forest and scored two goals.
“He was due to play for Aston Villa and be part of the squad that went to Anfield on Sunday, but he wasn’t because we got to the point where we could get him here.
“He was then in a car at 6am on Monday to try and get here, so he was signed before 12pm and could play on Tuesday night. If it isn’t done by 12, he couldn’t be involved on Tuesday.
“That deal got done at 11.59am.”
“There’s a lot of nervous tension around as a young lad when you’re coming up to a new club for the first time,” he explained. “Then on Monday night he’s living away from home for the first time in his life.
“I rang him at about 9pm to see how he was, and he’d just phoned up his mum to see how to turn the oven on. He was trying to cook himself some fish and noodles, I’m not too sure how that tasted or went down, but these are the things young lads have to go through.
“Thankfully he didn’t give himself food poisoning! The next day he was on our team coach to go to Port Vale to make his debut in front of 5,000 people.
“What a few days that is for an 18-year-old. I have no doubt that once he settles down we’ll see more of what he can offer us.”
