Here are the three things that I wish I knew when I was sixteen trying to break into first team men's football for the first time.

Here are the three things that I wish I knew when I was sixteen trying to break into first team men's football for the first time. And I promise you if I knew the last one when I was still sixteen it would have saved me at least a season of my career. The first one is you have to stay in the race. And I'll give you an example to explain what I mean. Last season I was told I wouldn't start a single home game. So I'm looking at it going wow I'm going to play 20 out of 40 games I'm only going to play away. Now I could have easily just left found another club etcetera but I thought no I'm going to stay in the race. Opinions change quickly and by the third home game I was starting. And it relates to what Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth. Number two, trust is the only thing that matters to managers. You might be better than the guy ahead of you. I've seen some unbelievable players in non-league. But you will get benched if the manager doesn't trust you to do simple things. For me when I was younger I struggled with marking at set pieces and it literally killed my playing time. Any big game where it could be decided by a set piece I wasn't playing. Get the simple things right first and then build from there. Number three, don't jump ship too quick. This one is the one that killed me. And this is especially tough when you're young because you have to prove yourself more than that senior player. For example when I was sixteen I just signed for a step five side which was the highest level I'd ever played at at that time. And bear in mind I was sixteen, the manager said to me that look I think you're going to be a bench player for this season. And because of maybe my ego, I'm not sure what it was, I started looking for more clubs. So instantly I went from this step five club to another step five club where the manager promised me more minutes. I'll let you guess what happened when I got to this other step five club. Yeah, I was on the bench. I would have been better off just staying put where I was, gaining the trust of that manager than trying to move club because then you start from zero again and you have to do the whole process again. So if maybe you're not happy now like I said at the start, opinions change quickly. Keep working hard, keep showing up, you will get your opportunity. They're the three things that I wish I knew when I was sixteen and I promise you they would have saved me so much time jumping about, moving clubs, wasting time early on in my career. If they helped you, give me a follow.