Captain's Youth Cup Preview

Liverpool Academy captain Conor Coady admits he is relishing Saturday’s FA Youth Cup clash with Crystal Palace at Anfield.

The Reds U18s will look to build on their impressive showing in the third round against Notts County by progressing at the expense of the Eagles.

Coady admits he's delighted to be back into the swing of things following the Christmas break - and he can't wait to take to the field in front of the Kop.

Speaking to Liverpoolfc.tv, the centre-back said: "I'm made up to be back, I could not wait to get back in over Christmas and now that I'm here I'm going to keep working hard and preparing for the game on Saturday."

The U18s will face a tough challenge against Palace, who are in good form this season and are sitting at the top of their league.

The match will place some of England's finest youth players against each other, and to sweeten the deal, the game will be played on Anfield's hallowed turf.

Coady said: "Palace will be just as excited as us to be playing at Anfield, maybe even more so because I don't think they'll ever have played at a stadium like Anfield. It's absolutely amazing and one of the best stadiums in the world.

"Palace are a good team, they pass the ball well, they're good upfront and they're good in midfield, so I think it's going to be a really interesting and good game for both sides.

"We'll be against some top-class players and that's what we want as U18s, to improve by playing against the best, so Palace will definitely be a great learning curve for us.

"Hopefully it'll be a good result for us on Saturday but we'll just have to see how we play."

Looking back to the end of 2010 and the strong run of form the U18s displayed in the league, Coady feels results proved what a good team they have become under manager Rodolfo Borrell.

He said: "My highlight of 2010 was simply playing for Liverpool Football Club and captaining the club in every game. It's the proudest moment that I'll ever have in my life.

"Hopefully we can keep going and building on our form, we've done really well."

Despite an impressive run of form from the Academy, the squad never got a full run out in December as bad weather forced a number of games on the fixture list to be cancelled.

"Not having many games over Christmas was very frustrating," considered Coady. "Usually every week we're preparing for a match but we just had to keep focused preparing for whatever game there would be.

"Notts County in the third round of the FA Youth Cup was our only competitive game in December, which was an outstanding performance from all the boys. The first half hour was especially brilliant but we did drop a level after the first goal but I think we got it back in the second half."

Coady's comments on the performance may be seen as quite modest as the U18s ran out 4-0 winners on the night, with goals from Adorjan, Sterling and Ngoo seeing the team safely through to the next round.

"I think we could have scored more if I'm honest," Coady continued. "They had a few chances but I thought we played really well. Ngoo got two goals but missed a sitter. I hope he doesn't mind me saying that!"