IT'S TOUGH AT THE TOP, DOM

IT'S been a tough week for 19-year-old Dominic Morella.

He made his professional debut in our dismal FA Cup defeat at Torquay - so he had to stand on a chair and sing a song at dinner the previous evening.

Not only that, but we found out that he has a very attractive girlfriend, who has graced the pages of both Nuts and Zoo magazines. Needless to say, some of the lads had got hold of those pictures. Welcome to the pro game, Dom!

It can be very hard for young players to break into the first team, as I discovered when I started out with Blackburn Rovers.

They were in the Premier League and although I got a couple of starts as an 18-year-old, the manager - Graeme Souness - signed a few experienced strikers and I was suddenly struggling to get into the reserves.

Players don't always get treated equally, with those who have come through the ranks doing worse than those who've been brought in, both in terms of salary and game time.

At Rovers, loads of younger players were signed from lower league and Scottish clubs for millions of pounds but after a few months they ended up alongside us in the youth team, whilst earning a fortune.

It's tough to step up from the youth team to the first-team at any club - only three players from my 16-man Blackburn Academy youth team are still in professional football.

But I'm still grateful for the opportunity to have worked and played at a top-flight set up, because I worked with a fantastic youth team coach in Rob Kelly who gave me the foundations for the rest of my career.

Our squad still looks pretty threadbare after so many of our loan players have left.

Some of our fans have been questioning the wisdom of signing loan players at all but, while I understand their frustrations, I have to say they've been vital for us.

We've had players like Wes Hoolahan, Ian Evatt, Joe Hart, Paul Dickov and Alan Gow on loan.

While we signed a couple of those, like Wes and Evo, we couldn't have afforded the wages for all of them.

It's better to have signed these quality players for a couple of months than not have them at all.

It can also work for the club if the player doesn't turn out to be quite as good as you'd thought. It would have been a nightmare if those players had been signed on big three year contracts, only to be playing in the reserves and stopping the likes of Morrella getting a chance.

This article has 1 comment