Blueprint for future is a winner, says Spooner
BIRMINGHAM City are in good hands, according to youth coach Steve Spooner, who reckons the club have a wealth of young talent ready to burst on to the senior scene.
The academy has heavily influenced Blues’ solid start to the season with graduates Jude Bellingham and Odin Bailey scoring three match-winning goals between them.
Bellingham was on target in successive matches to see off Stoke and high-flying Charlton, while Bailey was the saviour last time out when his 89th-minute header quickly wiped out Middlesbrough’s late equaliser at St Andrew’s.
Both have developed under long-serving coach Spooner, who was promoted to Under-23s boss during the backroom reshuffle in the summer.
But Spooner, who has been at Blues since 2006, says they are by no means the only academy products cut out for a successful career in the game.
“The future of the football club is very good,” he said. “We have some very good young players coming through, in various positions as well, which is nice.
“We’ve managed to sell the strikers and attacking wide men (to the first team), but the midfield players are coming through now and we’ve got some very serious contenders in the defensive department as well.”
Part of Pep Clotet’s remit, when appointed caretaker head coach over the summer, was to give youth a chance at first-team level.
The Spaniard has certainly done that, handing debuts to Bellingham, 16, and 19-year-old Bailey, while also involving Steve Seddon and Wes Harding regularly in the early weeks.
Clotet named 13 academy products in the matchday 18 that travelled to Portsmouth in the Carabao Cup in August.
That so many gifted young players are emerging is, Spooner says, the result of many years’ hard work from coaches across all age groups. “It’s fantastic,” he said, “but it’s taken many years of planning and patience as well, which is what you need with young players.
“There are many coaches over the years who have affected these players. We’re very fortunate in the 18s and 23s, at the top end.
“The coaches who have nurtured them at nine, ten, 11 and all the way through, are just as important as us because they’ve all had a major part to play.”
Spooner and the rest of his players found out about Bailey’s headline-grabbing antics against Boro shortly after they returned to the changing room following a 0-0 Premier League Cup draw at Leeds.
“We came back in and it was 1-1,” Spooner said. “Then Agus (Medina) said ‘no, it’s 2-1’. Everybody was checking their phones, saying ‘it’s not on mine’.
“Then someone quipped, ‘yeah, Odin’s scored’, just joking. Geraldo (Bajrami), his big buddy, was saying, ‘that’s my boy!’ not knowing someone was winding him up.
“Then we had it confirmed and there was as much delight in that as if we’d won our game, because of the fact the first team had performed well and had a great result, but also the fact one of their comrades in arms had played a big part in it.”