Assistant manager Chris Hutchings says it’ll take clubs of Town’s size three or four years to build a squad capable of comfortably fulfilling all their U21 and U18 fixtures. The Blues lost 2-1 to Swansea in their first U21 Professional Development League Two — South game on Monday with several of the team having been in the U18 side which beat the same opposition 4-1 on Saturday.
Hutchings said: "It’s going to take about three or four years for clubs to build up big enough squads to actually fulfil this criteria.
"The big clubs, the Tottenhams, who have got 50 or 60 pros, they can carry it, but unfortunately, we can’t.
"It’s something that we need to work on and build on. The academy has to work at that and develop them and get them through.”
He feels that travelling to South Wales for what are essentially reserves fixtures — three overage players are permitted — is a touch absurd but says it comes with the territory of opting for a Category Two youth set-up with Category One U21 sides also playing games on a national basis: "It is [a bit ridiculous] but there’s an U21 criteria that we have to fit into.
"I think it’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday that you’ve got to get the games in and we haven’t got a big enough squad.
"We have our youth team playing on a Saturday and if we get three injuries, that decimates the U21 squad.”
The former Chelsea full-back says one side effect may be that players might be kept on simply to make up the numbers but that time will tell whether the new system helps more youngsters progress into the first team: "That’s all in the melting pot.”