The teenage defender suffered an injury-hit campaign with the Clarets’ Under-23s last season to stall the progress that had seen him secure a two-year professional deal in the summer of 2018 after being named as the club’s Young Player of the Year.

An impressive start to the 2018/19 Professional Development League season under Michael Duff and then Steve Stone had taken Younger to the fringes of the Clarets’ first-team squad before succession of hamstring problems forced him onto the sidelines from the turn of the year.

But the Skipton-born centre-back is now fully recovered and working hard at the U23s’ training camp in Poland to be in a position to re-state his case when the real thing starts again next month.

“I was gutted to get injured and in the second half of the season I think I played once or twice,” said Younger.

“It holds you back, but I had to keep my head down, keep strong and get back fit and then have a good pre-season and crack on from there and get some games under my belt.

Younger ballwork.jpg

“I don’t know what the plan will be – whether I’ll go out on loan – but I just want to play some games.

“I think we have a good group of players and obviously Steve and the staff are very good together with us.

“We finished fourth last year and I think we can do as well again, if not better, with some of the players we’ve got and I’m looking forward to it.

“It was a good season for the team. It would have been nice to have won something and to have achieved something but as a group we did well and gave ourselves something to build on.”

The emergence of Bobby Thomas from the youth team has added to the competition for places at centre-back in Stone’s squad, with Scott Wilson also having extended his stay by signing a first professional contract in the summer.

Younger knows he needs to resume his upward curve which, hopefully, an injury-free run and a sequence of games will allow him to do.

And he takes inspiration from other young players who have made the big break-through at Burnley and beyond as he looks to progress to the senior ranks.

“Every year is a big year and this year for me, coming into the last year of my contract, I really need to kick on and do well and get another contract, hopefully, at the end of it,” added the 19-year-old, who has spent a decade in the Clarets’ Academy system.

“If you do well and catch the eye of the gaffer. It just takes one or two opinions that you are a good player and have a bit about you and then as long as you do well and take your opportunity there’s no holding back.

“You don’t know what can happen. I think Marcus Rashford is a good example of that at Manchester United, as well.”

POS	Team	PL	PTS
10	MC	2	3
11	BUR	3	3
12	BRE	3	3

POS	Team	PL	PTS
10	MC	2	3
11	BUR	3	3
12	BRE	3	3

Younger Back In Business

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