Spurs loan man has made a bright start to his PNE loan spell
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Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom wants another one of his players to make the England Under-21 squad.
Thierry Small earned his maiden call up to the Young Lions in September and was asked back this month. PNE’s number 26 - who has started every Championship game so far this season - made his debut against Moldova away.
North End’s boss has not played down the achievement, though knows it’s merely a next step on the journey Small wants to take. And, he feels there’s scope for Preston to have double recognition in Lee Carsley’s squad.
“Yeah, my aim is to try and get Alfie (Devine) in that as well this season,” said Heckingbottom. “I think it’s great recognition and something that Thierry can be proud of. But it's a stepping stone, isn't it?
“You can't be satisfied with a stepping stone. But yeah, it’s good. He went away in the first one; feedback was good. He didn't get minutes but they called him up again, so you know then the feedback was truthful and they were happy with him.
“Then, he gets some minutes in the first game (this time) which is great, so his job is to try and sustain that. The 21s are totally different from the other age groups. It's serious. It's under-21s, but it's under-21 at the start of each cycle and campaign.
“So you're actually playing with 23, 24-year-olds who are the best in the country. It's a big achievement to get in that squad. Thierry's openly said (it) and we've got lots of players who have ambitions to be performing in the Premier League.
“The majority there are in the Premier League, so you get an eye-opener as to the talent that the players have. One or two will have the mentality as well and already be performing at the top. That recognition is a really big motivator for you to keep going and drive on and try and get more.”
Small was one of a handful of PNE men to go away with their countries over the latest international break. Another was Northern Ireland stalwart Ali McCann, who started both games against Slovakia and Germany. Heckingbottom tuned in for the latter match and was impressed with what he saw.
“We were chatting afterwards about the energy they've got, how hard they work for each other,” said Heckingbottom. “I actually felt in that Germany game, Germany were wary of that and a bit unsettled by it; maybe a German team wouldn't have been fazed by that (in the past). That goal that was disallowed early on as well, the physicality, directness, ‘Come on then, deal with this, defend this’. It would've been interesting to see if that one had been given onside.”
Northern Ireland played Germany on the Monday but McCann’s double workload saw him put on the bench away to West Brom, last Saturday. Heckingbottom feels it’s something which has contributed to the midfielder’s injury issues in recent years. McCann, in the last four Championship seasons, has made 29, 31, 31 and 28 league appearances, respectively.
“Yeah, it does (impact selection),” said Heckingbottom. “I think it's only natural. Ali’s a huge, huge part of what Northern Ireland do. Anyone who watches Northern Ireland play will see he puts just as much effort into those games as he does for us. He puts everything on the line.
“So yeah, before my time and then last year, Ali certainly at key moments suffered injuries through fatigue and overuse, so we want to try and protect him from that - protect ourselves from that - because he's a big player for us. But also, we've got a squad now where as good as Ali is, we don't want to weaken the team.
“So, we've picked good teams. We've got Ali on the bench coming on. Andy (Vukcevic) we were worried about as well, because he's had big numbers when he's been away. Milly, his training programme's been poor for us the last five, six weeks due to injury and a court case. He went away and played two games again, so we knew that he'd probably not last. We’re always considering that until the end of the November window.”
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