Left-back Ellis Dunn is on trial for one of the most distinguished academies in world football, at Southampton Football Club.

The young full-back attended our trial events in West London in February and April this year, leading to interest from Southampton.

Within a week of the April trial, Ellis was stepping out in the red and white stripes of the Saints.

Six weeks later, we caught up with Ellis’ dad, Lee, who gave us an insight on how the trial has been going to this point.

“Ellis played in a game last night and it went really well – they won 5-0,” said Lee.

“He’s normally a left back but they see him as a centre back there because he’s quite tall, and there’s another game next Thursday at the training ground, so that’ll be about 5/6 weeks now and he’s played a few games, too.”

Lee continued: “We live in Surrey so he’s training at the London Branch three times a week where he’s enjoying it and doing really well. We’ll get some feedback in the next two or three weeks about the following season.

“But Southampton are great, we’ve been really impressed with the club. The coaches are good, he gets lots of feedback and they all want to help, so we’re happy with them.”

Prior to 2018, Ellis had never had a trial with a professional club.

However, when the Southampton opportunity presented itself, so to did an opening at Chelsea.

“About six weeks ago, Chelsea invited Ellis down for a trial at Cobham and that was around the same time he started at Southampton,” Lee explained.

“We were down at Chelsea on the Monday and had a game on Tuesday for Southampton, then Wednesday he had a game for Chelsea and was back in training with them on Thursday, so he was shattered that week!”

“We’re coming up to the end of the 8 weeks now so we’ll get some feedback soon and find out what the plans are for pre-season.”

We will stay in touch with Ellis and his family, and bring more updates on his future as we get them.