Lapslie: An Academy Gem

George Lapslie (no.7)

Harvey Clare speaks to George Lapslie about his development at Charlton Athletic, and the current season.

With The Addicks first team in such disarray, rock bottom of The Championship and likely to be relegated, there haven’t been many silver linings around the South-East London club this season.

One of the only promising things coming out of the club is their incredible youth setup and the under 21 and under 18 team, specifically a certain George Lapslie.

Lapslie is a young, highly promising English centre-midfielder who is the captain of the Charlton Athletic’s under 18 team. He is a second-year scholar who has already featured within the under 21 squad and has even travelled with the first team during this season’s Emirates FA Cup campaign.

Lapslie’s week is as hectic as any average professional footballer. He trains four times a week at the Charlton training ground, based in Sparrows Lanes, whilst also studying at college.

On most Saturdays (depending on the fixture list) he captains his side in the Under 18’s Professional Development League 2. “It was an honour to be chosen to captain such a talented team, I was chosen as captain by my team mates” he said.

Vote

George went on to say how the manager, Sergei Baltacha, created a voting system whereby all the players in the squad vote for who they think should be captain. This system was set up to ensure there wasn’t any favouritism between the players and the coaching staff.

“It was a great feeling being chosen by my teammates to be captain,” said Lapslie. “In many ways it’s better than being chosen by the managers, because it is nice to know that they all notice and respect my attitude to work during training, gym and during the match.”

The similarity between the youth squads and the first team is enormous. Preparation for Saturday games will normally start on a Thursday. The under-18 team will have training sessions based on how their upcoming opponents play and will try to implement their own style of play against the opponents’ shape.

Talent

The academy team will always look to dominate ball possession and create chances by quick link up play around all areas of the pitch, especially the final third. “Then we will have all of the final touches on Friday in the analysis room, for example actually watching a few patterns of the opponents’ play and watching a few of their set pieces in order to create our own set pieces to exploit their weaknesses”

George isn’t the only one with football talent in the family. His older brother, Tom plays for Colchester United. “We are very different players but have both learned a lot off of each other”

“He is an inspiration to me and everything he does is huge motivation for me to follow in his footsteps and play in the Football League. As you can imagine all we talk about is football and I am very lucky to have someone like him to look up to and learn off.”

George is looking to seal his second Professional Development League 2 title in a row this season as his side are top of the league with less than six games to go. On a personal level, George says that everything is going very well and he’s pushing to get into the under-21 team a lot.

Class

So what is the biggest challenge in making the step-up in class? “I would have to say the competitive edge that 21’s football has.

“Of course in both teams, the 18’s and 21’s are looking to keep the ball on the deck and build though the thirds. However, I would say the importance of winning is enforced more in the 21’s matches, which is probably because it is adjusting you more to men’s football and the importance of the points in the football league.”

As to his future, Lapslie said that he doesn’t know what it holds: “There’s just no telling within this game, I wish I knew what the future held for me in my career.”

George also spoke about the desire he has to break into the first team whilst playing with the players he’s grown up with. “That would be the dream within the next two years but I know that I have got a long way to go and that will not be an easy journey.”

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