What young Villa centre-backs Sil Swinkels and Josh Feeney learned in League One's school of hard knocks
Hard knocks are part of a young footballer's education.
Stepping into a first team asks questions. It can be abrasive, unforgiving and, depending on circumstances, a culture shock. This may be even truer for a central defender, a position that requires consistency and minimal errors. Lessons can be harsh.
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For a defender's first forays outside the Premier League academy bubble and into a senior side elsewhere, the stakes are raised immeasurably; results dictate a league position and there are financial repercussions, be it a loss of funding, employment for club workers or bonuses, which some players heavily rely on.
'When I first came in, we won a couple and (were) above the relegation places,' Sil Swinkels, Aston Villa's central defender who spent the second half of last season at Bristol Rovers in League One, tells The Athletic. 'You start to think, 'Oh, we're doing well here'. I scored on my debut, which was amazing and a blur.
'Then you lose one and you feel it in the changing room. The mood changes because careers are on the line. That's very different from the under-21s. Games are about development and if you lose but you play well, that's almost more important. After the first loss, I was in a proper survival fight.'
It is little wonder that the 21-year-old centre-back found solace in trading experiences with another young Villa centre-back, Josh Feeney, 20, who spent last season on loan at Shrewsbury Town, also in English football's third tier. Both players experienced the sharp pain of relegation.
'Josh and I spoke before and after every game,' says Swinkels. 'It was just, 'Are you starting? Who have you got on the weekend?'. If I were playing a team he had faced, he would give me advice about their striker and vice versa.'
At the start of May, both returned to Bodymoor Heath, Villa's training ground, for post-season reviews with emerging talent development manager Tony Carss.
'The reviews were about sharing our own experiences which were very similar,' says Swinkels. 'We both came from Villa into teams that didn't really play football themselves anymore and were struggling. It was nice to talk over because it was so recognisable.'
While Dutchman Swinkels was leaving Villa's orbit for the first time since arriving from Vitesse Arnhem in 2020 in a deal worth £180,000 ($244,000 in today's exchange), Shrewsbury was Englishman Feeney's second loan, having been the first of five graduates to move to Unai Emery-owned Basque club, Real Union, in January 2024.
Villa took a calculated risk when they signed Feeney from Fleetwood Town for a substantial fee in June 2021. It was the era of Covid and behind-closed-doors matches, when opportunities to watch players in the flesh were limited.
Scouting took place on the usual platforms — Wyscout and other data software — and Villa's youth recruitment decided to pursue Feeney without so much as a distant in-person view of the defender. When negotiations took place over Zoom, Feeney was 14 and playing for Fleetwood's under-18s, before he featured on their senior bench as a 15-year-old.
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Feeney, who rejected interest from other top-flight sides, entered Villa's scholarship programme. He became the youngest player to feature in Villa's matchday squad in the 2021-22 season and combined captaining England's under-17s with training in then-manager Steven Gerrard's first team.
Since then, he has played in Villa's three pre-season trips abroad and has benefited from greater tactical understanding through Emery's coaching. Shrewsbury, meanwhile, offered a hardship that, as the theory goes, is often required in pursuit of progress.
While on their loans last season, the pair regularly checked in with Carss, who would ring or message after most games. Sometimes they would chat naturally, perhaps a way of showing they were still in the club's thoughts and, at others, be sent clips of previous games with comments from Carss.
'It would be, 'Have a look at this, what could you have done better here?',' says Swinkels. 'Or, 'Here you do this, which is not bad, but this maybe would be better'. So he was working with me closely, which gave me the feeling I was representing Villa.'
Swinkels had signed a new long-term contract at Villa earlier in the season, with first-team minutes the next stage of his development.
He could have gone on loan last summer after Peterborough United and Wycombe Wanderers expressed interest, but Villa decided they were light in central defence with Tyrone Mings recovering from an ACL injury, so they kept the Netherlands youth international to provide cover for the first half of the season.
Rovers entered the equation over the winter. They share a productive relationship with Villa, and Swinkles joined Lino Sousa, a 20-year-old left-back already there on loan. A year earlier, Lamare Bogarde benefited from successive spells at Rovers and later provided essential depth to Emery's side.
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Bogarde and Swinkels had been scouted by Villa's recruitment staff on the same day of a trip to the Netherlands. The latter played 14 games for Rovers and believes his time in the south west stands him in excellent stead heading into the summer.
'I spoke to Lino, who was enjoying it, and then Lamare said he learned a lot,' says Swinkels. 'Having players that have been there and done what you want gives familiarity.
'When I spoke to them, Rovers did a presentation and showed the examples of Elliot Anderson (now at Nottingham Forest) and Jarell Quansah (Liverpool), who played on loan. There were four or five cases in the last three years of players going there and then kicking on their careers.'
At Rovers, Swinkels played in his most familiar position in a back four, before moonlighting at full-back and in a back three whenever manager Inigo Calderon wanted further defensive cover.
It tested how Swinkels defended; a centre-back in youth football would be accustomed to play being in front of him. Here, though, opposing strikers were more willing to nudge, poke and turn.
'When I came, we wanted to play football and I was thinking, 'This will be nice, I can still play',' Swinkels laughs. 'But quickly we changed to very direct football. You get used to it because if you know you're going to play long, you stop looking for shorter passes.
'Off the ball was a big change, especially playing in a back five where there are a lot of situations defending wide areas. When teams go long in academy football, they will play off the forward, getting knockdowns. In League One, they wouldn't look to knock the ball down — strikers would just knock the ball on further.
'The way strikers use their body… they see me jumping and while in mid air, they give a nudge. After a couple of games, I started knowing when to jump and when it's better to let them jump and nudging them.'
Rovers finished 22nd in League One, with only Cambridge United and Feeney's Shrewsbury below.
If Swinkels' loan was immediately being thrown in at the deep end, Feeney's experience was longer, more gradual. A previously stable League One side who had been in the division for 10 successive seasons, Shrewsbury were treading water before sinking.
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This had little to do with Feeney, whose performances got better as the team got worse. Barring injuries, Feeney was largely ever-present, making 39 appearances in all competitions.
Realistically, Swinkels and Feeney are expected to go on loan again and step up levels once more in 2025-26.
It seems that adversity and being battle-hardened early in a career, despite the particular pitfalls for centre-backs, is no great issue for two Villa players who aspire to compete at the highest possible level.
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