Kris O’Leary | U23s must adapt to hectic season climax

Kris O’Leary has urged Swansea City Under-23s to be competitive and adaptive as they prepare to end their season with three successive away games in the space of a week.

The young Swans travel to Technique Stadium – home of National League side Chesterfield – to face Sheffield United in the Professional Development League on Tuesday.

It will be the first of three away games in just six days for O’Leary’s side, who face Colchester United on Friday, before concluding their campaign at Sheffield Wednesday on Monday.

The under-23s are in decent form, having suffered just one defeat in their last eight games, while they were 2-0 winners against Wigan Athletic last time out thanks to Ali Al-Hamadi’s brace at Landore.

O’Leary knows that the hectic season-ending schedule will provide a tough test of his players’ credentials. 

But the under-23s coach insists they must be able to deal with the scenario.

“We’re going into a really tough period where we’ve got three games in less than a week,” he said.

“All of them are away and long-distance journeys. 

“It’s going to be difficult and testing, but this is how it is at first-team level. You’ve got to adapt and learn to deal with this amount of games. 

“Every game poses a different challenge, but we’re going into it off the back of some decent performances. 

“This is the next part for the players, where you have to play, recover, play then recover, and be at a level where you can’t decrease by one per cent or you will get found out.

“We’re going to do our best. It’s going to be difficult, but we’re going to be competitive.”