Young and gifted... Future’s bright for Bluebirds as U23s really shine under Morison’s guidance
JUST a shade over one year has passed since Steve Morison was appointed head coach of Cardiff City’s under-23s.
A lot has changed in that time and so much of it has been for the good.
While many City supporters are getting swept up by the juggernaut that is currently Mick McCarthy’s senior team, there is something equally exciting bubbling away within the youth ranks.
The under-23s have won five games in a row, but as Morison will tell you, it’s not the results that matter. Or certainly it is no barometer for success.
When Morison took over, Cardiff had not produced any academy products for the first team in years. The former Wales striker had quite the job on his hands, it would seem.
“You go in, take the job and then go, ‘Right, what are we working with? What have we got to do?,’” he tells WalesOnline.
“Then the questions get thrown at you. ‘Oh, we haven’t produced a player for the first team for a long time.’ Someone said the last one to me was Aaron Ramsey, I don’t know if that’s 100 percent the case, it seems like a long time ago.
“Ultimately, that’s not for me to worry about. For me, it’s about what has stopped people getting into the first team. What can we do to make it better?
“I didn’t actually know what the blocking mechanisms were and why the players aren’t getting to where they need to.
“It was a really good opportunity for me and Tom Ramasut to implement change under James McCarthy, who brought me in, and Neil Harris, who was here at the time. He was a massive believer in trying to get the academy closer to the first team.
“We all know now we are in a better position than we were.”
Indeed, City’s youth system appears to be in rude health compared to just 12 months ago, with Joel Bagan, Tom Sang and Rubin Colwill having made their league debuts, while Mark Harris is now a first-team regular.
The likes of Kieron Evans, Isaak Davies, Chanka Zimba and Keenan Patten have also featured in matchday squads in recent times.
But what were the changes which needed to be implemented to ensure all this came to fruition?
“When I walked through the door there were 31 players in the under23s,” Morison adds. “You wouldn’t run a first team with 31 players!
“You are looking at a group that has 22-year-olds in it and a group that has 18-year-olds in it. How do I get an 18-year-old, who is potentially better than the 22-year-old, in the team if I have got someone who is 22 and he is better than the other player now.
“There was a big conversation and a lot of players were released at the end of last season. But that’s because those players weren’t playing in the first team. They weren’t even training with the first team.
“They were having moments. Cameron Coxe had a couple of games in the first team.
“These players were still training with me every day when I come in.
“So my thought on it was that we trim the squad as much as we could and we looked at it as wanting to have the youngest functioning group we possibly could to give those players the biggest chance to be able to get to where they need to get to.”
But, in addition, there has been a change of mindset. A ruthlessness which Morison and Tom Ramasut, his assistant, have implemented which does not afford the players any easy outs.
Some of Morison’s youngsters have been recognised by being included in the first-team fray, which is great, but that should represent only the beginning.
“The next thing is having no excuses,” he says. “There is absolutely no excuse.
“Let’s take Isaak Davies. There is now no excuse for him not to get into the first team. There is no one in front of him in my group. There are players in the first team and that’s his challenge, to get in the first team.
“All who is in his way now is Mark Harris, Max Watters and Kieffer Moore. He is not going to be a Kieffer Moore, so he is not in direct competition with him. So he has not got anyone in his way. No one is stopping him now.”
Then there is Rubin Colwill, the other young gun who recently signed his professional contract and is the latest to get fans excited. He is someone who has wowed Mick McCarthy in training sessions and made his debut with a minutelong cameo against Coventry City.
He has the likes of Harry Wilson, Lee Tomlin and Jonny Williams ahead of him in that playmaker role, but Morison tells him they must only be viewed as Colwill’s targets now.
“Harry Wilson is on loan. Sheyi Ojo is on loan. Junior Hoilett is out of contract. Jonny Williams has got maybe another year off the back of this,” Morison says.
“It’s easy. You use them as his motivation. Look at them, what do they do that you don’t do?
“They are just his targets. Him and Kieron Evans, who has also been in the first team.
“I remember saying to Kieron, ‘Do you want to be the next Junior Hoilett? Add end product to your game and you will be. You do everything else he can do, but he has goals and assists and that’s why he has played at the highest level for such a long time.’ “That’s his motivation. “These lads are in our group, but they ask all the time, ‘How do I get into the first-team squad?’
“Just be patient and remember, as I say to them before every session with the first team, ‘It’s your time to shine.’”
You get the sense Morison is not willing to accept mediocrity and it must be said that his attitude is impressive and his passion comes across clearly and succinctly.
It is a refreshing outlook from a person who so clearly wants his young players to succeed and he cogently articulates each and every thought.
Morison the tactician, meanwhile, has his under-23s playing some lovely football, too. They pass the ball crisply and at pace and have been a joy to watch during their recent winning streak.
A few avid supporters of the under-23s have raised the question, though, that Morison’s team play a very different style of football to Mick McCarthy’s more pragmatic first team. But Morison insists the base principles are very much the same.
“Football is very much, you have to work with what you’ve got,” he says. “So, if I have Kieffer Moore up front for the under-23s, I’d play the ball longer.
“I have Isaak Davies up front and Kieron Evans on the left. Would I be doing those players a disservice by smashing long balls down their throat all night?
“Football is about principles. First
These lads are in our group, but they ask me all the time: “How do I get into the first team?”
Cardiff City U23s coach Steve Morison
and foremost, you have to run, that doesn’t change. That is irrelevant of style. If you can’t run, you can’t play football.
“You have to run in and out of possession.
“You create patterns all over the pitch when you’ve got the ball and play forward. Which is exactly what we do and the first team do.
“And we try to limit risks. Which is exactly what the first team do.
“From an attacking point of view, we want to play around, play over or play through, whatever is going to beat the opposition. That’s exactly what the first team do. It’s absolutely no different.”
All this, of course, was kick-started by Neil Harris and the higher-ups at the club. Harris wanted a greater synergy and synchronicity between the senior side and the under-23s.
And he and Morison worked closely together to improve the fortunes of the under-23s and we are seeing the fruit of that labour today under Mick McCarthy.
Morison and Harris obviously go way back owing to their Millwall connection. Morison, though, says Harris insisted on not being involved in the interview process due to a potential conflict of interest.
And While Morison was sad to see his old friend leave the club, he understands the nature of the beast that is football.
“It was good that we had that relationship to try and help bring the club’s academy forward, closer to a version of the first team,” he says. “That was all really positive.
“When he left, I only spoke to him the day he left, he rang me that evening to say to keep enjoying myself and keep learning, a normal conversation.
“It’s not nice to see anyone lose their job. It was not a nice moment.
“But it didn’t affect my job or my role so I just had to crack on. There is a bigger picture to it.
“I’m sure Neil will pop up somewhere at some point and he will have another crack at something he loves doing. It was a shame because six months previously he was one goal away from going to Wembley. But that’s football, isn’t it?”
Morison stresses, though, that his relationship with new boss McCarthy has been fantastic since he took charge. His players train side by side with the first team and if McCarthy changes the time of he first-team session, Morison will do so accordingly with his under-23s.
“It might be so stupid and people might think that’s what we always do. No, that didn’t happen,” he explains. “The under-23s didn’t always train when the first-team trained. They didn’t train on the pitch next to them. “But they do now.
“If the manager changes training tomorrow and they are training at 6pm, I will change training to 6pm tomorrow.
“That is what is required for our players. You won’t be found if you’re not seen.
“The manager needs to see to believe. If he doesn’t see them, what chance have they got?”
Encouragingly, Morison’s close relationship with Harris appears to have continued strongly with the new man in charge. They speak every day on the training ground and he says the transition has been seamless. And that is a big positive, because while everyone will agree that the academy has taken a giant leap in the right direction, Morison recognises there is still some way to go. The foundations are now there but the graft, for everyone, is only just beginning.
“The odds of people coming through academies and making it as a fully fledged pro is 0.01 percent, something crazy,” he says.
“Look, Rubin and Isaak haven’t made it - I’ve told them both that. I told them the hard work starts now.
“They have done the first bit, they’ve got their professional contracts after leaving their scholarships, now it’s the real challenge, because this is the easy bit. Going on to be a professional and playing 600 league games, now that’s really tough.”
That’s the standard Morison and his coaching staff, indeed the club as a whole, are now setting these young players. The goalposts have shifted over the last 12 months and Morison, along with David Hughes, the club’s head of youth coaching, and James McCarthy, the academy head, are driving this exciting push for youngsters to break into the first team and the pathway has been cleared to do so. Yes, Morison’s under-23s have now won five on the bounce, but, for him, there is a far bigger picture at play here.
“Winning for us, in the grand scheme of things, is Rubin Colwill making his debut, Isaak Davies being in the squad, that is winning for this football club,” he says.
“We just have to keep working hard and we are by no means done yet. We are working round the clock, grafting to make sure we make this football club better from within.
“There are going to be bumps and disagreements along the way, but as long as we are all coming from the right place, then it’s all good.”
And given the number of the players who have come through this season, are there any others in the pipeline he wants to shed some light on?
“Just watch this space,” he says.