BAD NEWS FOR YOUNGSTERS

THIS is not a good week to be a young player as the rules on their YTS contracts state that all the second year apprentices have to find out if they are being kept on or not by the April 1.

I read a statistic the other day that said 600 players join Premier League and Football League clubs at 16-years-old and by the time they are 20, 500 have been released.

That's a shocking statistic and it must scare a lot of parents with child prodigies.

Unfortunately five players have been released at Blackpool, with two being kept on. It must be a horrible job for the youth team coach. Who wants to crush a young boy's dream?

Thankfully there are examples of players proving managers wrong and coming back better after being released. The likes of David Platt and Kevin Phillips spring to mind.

When I was a young player at Blackburn Rovers our youth team won the Youth Premier League. As a result you would have thought we would have loads of players still playing but there are just three of us left in professional football and we are all in the lower leagues.

I played against so many talented players when I was younger that never even made a first team appearance, talent isn't always enough! I think when you make the step up to first team football a lot of players begin to get found out.

I have seen it with a few Academy youngsters who have come on loan to teams I have played for. It is a massive shock for them when they are playing for points and people's livelihoods.

Crumble

A lot of them crumble and go into their shells when team-mates have a go at them, and that's why there is such a huge number going out of the game. Luckily I have got used to people having a go at me over the years!

It could have been me fighting with all these youngsters for a club in the summer lottery, thankfully though I managed to get another contract. I'm hoping to start paying the club back against Plymouth on Saturday, if I can earn a place in the squad!

We have six games to go now and with six strikers vying for two places it will be interesting who gets the nod. In fact we have so many players in the squad now that we had an 11-a-side game in training and there were four lads who were subs.

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