Bright future for West Brom's U23s despite finishing bottom

But academy football is about more than just results, and even though Albion’s under-23s had a poor season on paper in Premier League 2 Division Two, scratch below the surface and things are far more encouraging.

Last summer Albion released 14 youngsters in an effort to trim the fat and give a promising batch ample space to grow into.

The first year scholars may not have delivered too many victories this season, but academy manager Mark Harrison is still pleased.

“I know people will say the U23s have finished bottom of their table so the obvious line to take is that results don’t matter,” he said. “Of course you want to win games, everybody does.

“But when you’re on a development journey, it honestly isn’t the most important thing.

“The most important thing is the pathway, are you giving players the right programme for their development?

"We have got the youngest U23 team in the league, that’s a fact. And those stats are blurred a bit by the fact we had one game when Gareth McAuley and Claudio Yacob played, that skewed it even more so.

“Ironically, I’m really encouraged by the U23s because we’ve had a very young group of players who have stuck at it through tough times.

“And actually, in the last couple of months there was a consistency in their performance but they didn’t get the results they deserved. I said to them, ‘I’m really looking forward to next season’.

“The first year scholars have always been a historically strong group as they’ve come through.

“They’ve done very well at national tournaments, and have competed against the so-called top academies and held their own.

“We wanted to expose them early, they will have gained an awful lot this year because of what they’ve played against.

“That was the plan. That was why we made the decisions we did last year.

"We knew this season was going to be a real challenge in terms of results for those players but as long as they’re managed right and supported, I’m very encouraged that over the next couple of years we’ll reap the rewards of that.”

Harrison has been at the Albion for 13 years and his primary remit has always been to get youngsters into the first team squad.

This season he’s seen midfielder Rekeem Harper make his debut at the age of 17, while there have been spots on the bench for defenders Nathan Ferguson, 17, and Kyle Jameson, 19, as well as striker Rayhaan Tulloch, 17.

This is before you take into account Sam Field, 19, who scored his first goal for the club against Newcastle and has been unfortunate not to feature more.

What’s more, there is a whole host of youngsters flourishing out on loan like Kane Wilson, 18, at Exeter City, Kyle Howkins, 21, at Port Vale, Dara O’Shea, 19, at Hereford, and Jack Fitzwater, 20, at Walsall.

“If we were to be selfish as an academy and thought let’s get good results for the under-23s and kept those players in the club I think I’d be fairly confident in three years time when that group is 20 and 21 they’d compete in that league,” said Harrison.

“But it can’t be about that and it shouldn’t be about that. The most important thing is that you look at each individual player’s programme and the pathway and is it right for them?

“For instance, having a first year scholar like Nathan Ferguson play 75 per cent of the U23 games, that’s brilliant.

"He’s 17 and he’s going up against 20 or 21 year olds, or playing against first team squad members like he did down at Brighton.

“You need that challenge. The day you start getting over-concerned with results at academy level, you’ve got a problem.

“The results are the players you’re bringing through, and only time will tell with that won’t it. But we like to think the future’s bright, especially with that group of players.”

The under-18s fared slightly better than the under-23s this season, and finished eighth in the 12-strong Premier League North division.

“We were pleased with that considering how young they were,” said Harrison. “We had a lot of U16s playing up.

“Morgan Rogers played consistently in the U18s and some in the U23s and he’s only 15.

“It’s not a gimmick, he played in the game at Villa against Walsall and was arguably our best player in that game.”