BILLY Barr is hoping his Blackburn Rovers Under-18s side can put the nerves to one side when they welcome Aston Villa to Ewood Park in round four of the FA Youth Cup tonight (7pm).

Barr admits nothing can quite replicate the experience of playing on the first-team pitch, but he is hoping the Rovers youngsters can put in a performance of which he knows they are capable of in a bid to reach the last 16.

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Rovers progressed to the semi-final of the competition last year, only to be knocked out by eventual winners Chelsea. They came through a tricky third round tie at Arsenal last month to make it in to round four, and if they get through they face either Yeovil Town or FC Broxbourne Borough, who also meet tonight.

The game will present some of Barr’s squad with their first opportunity of playing at Ewood, and he added: “We can’t replicate it. When it’s a pressure game, a cup game, the result matters and so does the performance to get the result.

“If we don’t perform on the night then it puts the result in jeopardy.

“Last year we were probably at our worst when we played at Ewood, but we’re a different group, with a different mentality, and we will have a different game-plan against different opposition. Hopefully everyone listens to that and takes it on board and puts it in to practice.

“The second years this year have been here before, the first years have now had some experience, so whichever team we go with should have had something within the Youth Cup.

“Hopefully that will mean the nerves of last year’s home games are no longer there.”

Top scorer Dan Butterworth scored the only goal of the game at Arsenal on December 16 in a game that saw the Gunners play more than an hour with 10 men.

Under-18s regulars Butterworth, Tyler Magloire, Stefan Mols, Joe Rankin-Costello and Tre Pemberton were all involved for Damien Johnson’s development squad in the 1-0 defeat to Swansea at Brockhall last week.

But Barr confirmed that the quintet are all available for tonight’s clash.

He added: “We had the Under-23s game on Friday which some of the lads played in, but it looks like they all came through unscathed.

“It was great to see so many Under-18s play for the Under-23s which is ultimately where you want them to progress to, so it’s fantastic from that point of view, but we were wincing with every tackle.”

Rovers and Villa will know plenty about each other having met in the fifth round last season, when Rovers progressed thanks to Pemberton’s late winner in a 2-1 victory at Villa Park.

On meeting again, Barr added: “Every team that’s left will have something.

“Maybe it’s good that we played Villa last year, but they could be a totally different outfit this year as we are.”