McCarthy: Andre Could Be a Special Player Tuesday, 19th Apr 2016 06:00 Town boss Mick McCarthy says youngsters who make their senior debuts at 16 either go on to be "special players" or are never seen again, and he doesn't anticipate Andre Dozzell, who made his Blues bow and scored at Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday and will make his first start against Fulham this evening, falling into the latter category. “Just making your debut at 16 does beggar belief,” McCarthy reflected. “Across the whole football world there aren’t many. Generally they end up being special players or some get in at 16, 17 or 18 and are never seen again. “I don’t think Andre’s going to be one of those, he’s a level-headed kid, he’s a talent and we’ll just have to make sure he [does make it] because you don’t know. “The excitement of Saturday is brilliant and he scored on his debut, but it might not go right for him Tuesday night, it doesn’t all just turn to gold straight away. “Let’s hope it does, but if it doesn’t we’ve got to be there to make sure he understands that. “It’s not always going to be like that every day. I scored on my debut a million years ago and not every game I played was as happy as that one, I can tell you.” He added: “If he turns out to be a diamond it’ll be great for the club. It doesn’t just stack up that because he’s got in the team and he’s scored on his debut that he’s now going to be a diamond for the club. “He’s certainly got the ability to do that. He wouldn’t be in the team. I’m not doing this as some advertisement for the club, he deserves his chance. “But there have been a lot of them that have done that and not gone on and done anything else.” He says that with Town’s season effectively over, now is the perfect moment for Andre to get some first-team games under his belt. “We’ve only got four left and he’s got a chance to play and I think it may well come at the right time,” McCarthy continued. “We have these few games, let’s see what he does on Tuesday, let’s see what it does if he gets involved in the other games and then let him have a holiday like the rest of us and go away and then come back and the euphoria will have died down a bit, the media interest. “It’s so much more than when I played. Everybody’s got an interest, the media, newspapers. I get it, it is a great story. “But I think it’s probably just enough for him to enjoy it and go away and come back and hopefully he’ll be in the first-team squad and he can train with us and be ready for next year.” He added: “He’s been training really well, he’s played well in the U21s. Let’s be brutally honest about it, if he hadn’t have scored we’d hardly have been waxing lyrical about his performance in the game on Saturday because it was just a real tough scrap. “But he contributed to that, which is nice to see because we all know he can play and he’s got his silky skills, and he’s got a goal in him, quite clearly. “That’s part of the game. It’s just about maturing as a player, but I would hope we’ve got enough senior players in there that can help him with all of that and we can allow him to play. “He stood up to a really tough test. But, of course, scoring on his debut is one we can all remember and enjoy. We’ll see when he starts tomorrow.” The Town boss says Dozzell junior will be managed in the right way: “I think I handle players particularly well, whether they’re 16 or 36, actually. That's probably one of the good strings to my bow. “And he’s got a good influence with his dad, with Dozzer. I don’t think there are any issues with that, and there certainly aren’t any issues in terms of getting good advice and being looked after with myself and the club and TC and the rest of the staff. “Playing, that’s the main thing. He’s got in our first team at 16 years of age. Let’s see how many games he can play for us.” McCarthy says young players going into the senior squad can get a bit of friendly stick from the older pros and that can prove a little daunting for them. “It can be because you’ll get the test put on you as you walk in, somebody might say, ‘Have you knocked?’, and they smile as if to say, ‘I don’t think I should be knocking’. And then they say, ‘No, have you knocked? What are you doing in here?’. “And at 16 it’s not the easiest when big hairy back-sided senior professionals are doing it to you, just testing the water with you. “To be fair, we’ve got a great squad of lads and they certainly wouldn’t be going over the top, but I remember being a young lad. You got tested out, as you went through the dressing room you have to be careful. “Years ago you might have got a clip or kick up the backside and thrown out if you didn’t knock on the door, but that has changed. “But what has never changed is the respect that senior pros have for good young players. They do love it. “Tabby, I texted him to see if he was going to be in this morning because of his whereabouts and he said he should be in on Monday morning and wasn’t it great for Andre. “He said he might not be here at the game tomorrow and I told him, ‘Dozzer’s playing’ and he said, ‘I’ll be there, I’m coming back to watch that’. “How lovely is that that he’s got the support of a guy who has been great here, Tabby? I think that’s the feeling from our lads. “They might tease them, they might put it up to them to see what reaction they get, but they’ve got a really healthy respect for what he is as a young player. And it was the same with Bish and all the other lads who are coming through.” The Blues manager reiterated that young players will have to play their part next season with the emergency loan system being scrapped. “I’ve talked about how many players we’ll need going forward for next season,” he continued. “Dozzer’s played, but Josh Emmanuel, Myles Kenlock, Kundai Benyu, James Blanchfield, Matt Clarke, coming back from his loan at Portsmouth, these lads are all going to have to play. “We’re not going to be carrying a squad of 24 senior professionals. I don’t want that anyway because that’s a recipe for disaster, you’re having to leave senior players who think they should be playing in the stands. “So there should be youngsters who are pushing to get in the team and when they do they can give it a real vibrant feel. If they’re good players then they come and bring that youthful enthusiasm to it.” McCarthy is well aware that Dozzell’s introduction has added a bit of excitement at the end of what’s ultimately been a disappointing season. “I would hope it has,” he said. “I think Bish gave a lot of that last year. Sadly for him he’s barely had an appearance this year. “Getting somebody like that in, who is an exciting player and is easy on the eye, if he’s able to get on the ball and stand up to all that other stuff in the Championship, then we’ve got a good player, but we knew that anyway.” McCarthy says he’s not given Dozzell any special advice ahead of this evening’s game: “I told him he’s playing, that’s enough. I really do think that if he can go and enjoy it and play like Andre Dozzell, he does things with the ball I’d never be able to tell him how to do anyway. “He’s just got that lovely ability. Don’t get me wrong, there’s not much I couldn’t tell him about, but he just has that nice balance, that nice way with him, he has a nice passing range, he’s a quality midfield player. “But he is 16 so let’s just temper the enthusiasm for what he’s going to achieve on Tuesday night. However, it’s great that he’s going to be in the team. “And he’s deserved it. As I said, I don’t think we’d be waxing lyrical but for his goal on Saturday, but that’s the difference. “Some centre forwards who never have a kick, we wouldn’t wax lyrical about their performances but they score the winner and all of a sudden they get the headlines, they get the man of the match award and everything’s brilliant. If he can bring that little bit of quality to it, that would be great.”
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