NIGEL Clough believes that the number of young players playing in the first team is a testament to the work of Burton Albion’s Academy.
The manager also says that there is a pathway for graduates of the Academy to play for Burton Albion.
Matty Palmer has been a regular fixture in the first team since the club’s promotion to the Championship, Joe Sbarra made his first league start against Sunderland, having already made four substitute appearances in the league and starting two Carabao Cup games for the club, and Ben Fox has been recalled from a loan spell at Tamworth to be in contention for the first-team squad.
The Academy has been operating for less than a decade, and Clough feels that the three players currently involved in the squad show that there is a route for local players to progress through the ranks and play for the first team.
He said: “It is another part of the club that is still in its infancy, really, it has been going less than 10 years, the Academy, and yet we have got three players who are all playing in the first-team.
“That is a brilliant credit to the work that has gone on, and is still going on, in the Academy. I think that the supporters want to see good young, local players come through and we will give them that pathway and give them the opportunity, just as we did with Joe Sbarra on Saturday.”