Wanderers scholars are making great strides in pre-season after reaching the semi-final of the international youth tournament The Milk Cup in Northern Ireland.

The U18s, under a new coaching team of David Lee and Tony Kelly, ran out 1-0 winners against Dublin-based Belvedere on Wednesday evening thanks to Oulwasamni Odelusi's second goal of the competition.

Having been one of 24 teams, including Tottenham, FC Porto and Manchester United, to enter at the start, Desportivo now stand in the way of Wanderers reaching the final in their debut year at the tournament.

They meet the Brazilian side this evening (Thursday).

Speaking about the appointment of the new coaching regime, Academy Director Jimmy Phillips said:

"We have a new coaching team for this season with David Lee taking charge of the team and Tony Kelly working as his assistant.

"As an Academy we like to promote coaches from within and David has done a good job with the U12s and U16s. He knows the way that the Academy is structured, plus he has great experience having done a similar job with Wigan Athletic.

"Tony recently passed his UEFA B Coaching Licence and he has shown great promise and a real enthusiasm for coaching.

"With both being ex-players with Bolton they also understand the club's mentality."



Phillips also spoke about his satisfaction in seeing the U18s reach the last four of the Milk Cup.

He added: "It was a very fierce first-half against Belvedere but after the break we managed to get our passing game going on what was a difficult pitch.

"We created four or five chances and fortunately we managed to covert one of those and we got a deserved win.

"We hope to go further but we know the Desportivo are a free-scoring team and this will be our toughest test so far. We will need to put in another disciplined performance.

"This tournament has been great in terms of preparation for the new season because it has helped team spirit and allowed the new scholars to integrate into the squad very quickly."