Coventry City Academy Manager Gregor Rioch is excited by interaction between the club’s first-team and their youth set up.
Four of Rioch’s current crop of Apprentices featured for the club’s first-team on Saturday in their 2-2 pre-season friendly draw at Nuneaton Town.
And he believes that number could increase as the season goes on with Manager Andy Thorn extremely supportive of the club’s youth players.
“The way things are currently progressing between the first team and the academy is exciting for us but getting to this stage now is us seeing the benefits of long periods of hard work from the staff both that are currently here and those that have since moved on,” Rioch told the club’s website.
“Andy Thorn has been a real stronghold for the academy since he came into his position as manager. It’s our job to provide him with players when he needs them, it’s his job to take them when he wants them and provide us with feedback on their development and it’s working really well because obviously the ultimate goal is first team football.”
“Academy football is all about the development of young players to make sure they are ready to make that next step up to the first team so at our stage it’s not always about results but I find if you approach the development side in the right way you get the right result anyway.”
“We’ve had another good intake here this season, another eight young lads to join the ten we already have, and if we get our full quota of players on a Saturday we can give any team we face a hard time although again the main aim is development.”
“At the moment I think there is a real connection between the academy and the first team and that’s really exciting from our point of view,” he added.
