B Team midfield man Reece Cole has made it his goal to make his Brentford first team debut by the end of season.
After an impressive early season run with Jon De Souza’s under-18s last year, Cole soon found himself in Flemming Pedersen’s U21 side, and was one of four under-18s to be offered professional terms – alongside Chris Mepham, Kyjuon Marsh-Brown and Danny Parish.
His performances pleased Dean Smith so much that the 18 year-old received the coveted call to appear on the substitutes bench three times towards the culmination of the 2015/16 campaign and was on the bench for Tuesday night's EFL Cup match at Exeter.
And Cole admits that the experience, coupled with the B Team’s trip to Denmark, made him hungry for more success in the first team mix.
He told GetWestLondon: “It was obviously great to be on the bench for the last couple of games of the season – I was itching to get on.
“It’s always good going away to different countries – playing different teams and seeing how they set up against us tactically and mentally, it’s all a challenge.
“But my ambitions are to make my debut by the end of the season, so I will be working hard every day in training to make those dreams come true for me.”
Cole explained that he was delighted to still have a part to play after the restructuring of the academy in the summer, and how he wants to score more goals this season.
He said: “It’s good to know they’ve got plans for you, but at the end of the day it’s only you who can do it, you’ve just got to work hard, put your foot down in training and just do the best you can do.
“My best attributes are probably passing and shooting – as soon as I came on [against Peterborough], I played a decent pass so I was quite happy with that. Just passing and trying to get into the box as much as I can to hopefully score some goals.”
