Aston Villa's Delfouneso out to impress for England U19s

Mar 25 2009 by Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

“Every young player has the ambition to earn full honours and it’s great to be around the likes of Gabby Agbonlahor, Ashley Young and Gareth Barry who have already achieved it,” he said.

“Hopefully I can move through the levels quickly and do it well. I want to do the best I can for the team.”

For the moment Delfouneso’s aim is to help England recover from a 3-0 friendly defeat to Spain at Bournemouth with May’s European Championship Elite Round qualifiers on the horizon.

“Obviously we are all here trying to make a name for ourselves, the aim is to try to impress the manager and make sure we are in the squad for the qualifiers as well,” he said.

“There are a lot of good players out there who are not in the squad now so it’s down to us to take this opportunity and go out there and play well.

“We are lucky that most of the squad here already have first-team experience. Jack Rodwell has been playing regularly in the Premier League with Everton, Gavin Hoyte is out on loan at the moment but has played for Arsenal.

“There are a lot around the first team and it’s all good for us. It’s important for our education and experience. Can my European experience gained help? Yes. I’ve learnt about how to play different kinds of teams and formations from other countries and I can now bring that experience into my game.”

Delfouneso added: “It’s always nice to play at Walsall. Hopefully there will be a good following there to get behind us. The main thing is we get the victory.

“We had a little bit of a blip the last game, we were a bit disappointed with the performance so it’s important we get a bit of momentum going so that we go into this summer’s qualifiers with confidence.