Academy schoolboy Byron Lawrence looks set to become the club’s second-youngest senior player before the end of the season with manager Paul Jewell confirming that he plans to give the 16-year-old “some game time” during the final four matches.
Lawrence, who was on the bench for the Carling Cup tie against Northampton in August, warmed up with the first team before the Leicester match on Monday and Jewell is likely to give him his debut in the next few weeks: "We’ll try and get him some game time, I think. He’s been off school for the last two weeks and he’s been training with us.
"You forget he’s only 16. We’ve got high hopes for Byron and we’ll try and get him some game time between now and the end of the season.”
If Lawrence, who qualifies to play international football for Italy as well as England, is involved at Crystal Palace on Saturday aged 16 years and 33 days, he’ll be younger than Jason Dozzell was when he made his first team debut — and scored — as a sub against Coventry in February 1984 at 16 years and 57 days old.
Connor Wickham became Town’s youngest-ever player when he came on as a sub in the 3-1 home defeat to Doncaster in April 2009.
Cambridgeshire-based Lawrence, who was recruited from non-league Histon's youth set-up and becomes a full-time scholar this summer, was previously described as a "Jack Wilshere type player” by Jewell and usually operates either wide in midfield or in the role behind the lone striker occupied by Lee Martin in the first team.
Meanwhile, Jewell is set to meet with Marcus Evans next Tuesday to discuss the situations of out of contract players including Grant Leadbitter, Jason Scotland and Lee Bowyer. Blues owner Evans is currently away on holiday in the Bahamas.