Boss Paul Lambert says Blues trio Trevoh Chalobah, Andre Dozzell and Flynn Downes deserved their inclusion in the England U20s squad which beat Germany 2-0 at Colchester United last night and says he has no qualms about fielding young players in his first team.
Lambert was at last night’s match at the JobServe Community Stadium, where he was manager between 2008 and 2009, to watch the trio in action.
Chalobah, who is on loan with the Blues for the season from Chelsea, skippered, while Dozzell also started and Downes came off the bench in the final minutes.
"It was good to see them because I think they deserve it. I think the three of them have been doing really, really well,” the Blues boss said when speaking to Mark Murphy on BBC Radio Suffolk’s breakfast show.
"Andre’s a little bit different, he’s just come back from an injury but Flynn and Trevoh have been excellent for us, two young lads with their whole careers in front of them, a long, long way to go before they’re established but they’ve got their first foot on the ladder as I call it, and if they keep their feet on the ground they’ve got a chance.”
Dozzell and Downes both came through the Town academy and Lambert says he has been impressed by some of the players he has seen playing in academy sides since he’s been at the club.
"In the short space of time that I’ve been here I’ve watched the U15s play and it’s unusual where you have five or six kids in there that look really good,” he said.
"But nobody knows what’s going to happen to them in the teenage years when they leave school and they discover nightclubs and alcohol and things like that, it’s true.
"I think it’s important they have to stay on their path and do things the right way and sacrifice a lot of stuff, and if they do that they’ve got a chance. Especially the younger ones, you have to keep them on track.”
Regarding the academy overall, he added: "I think it’s great but you can have the best academy in the world but if you’re not producing players there’s no benefit of it.
"You’ve got to produce players and clubs like Ipswich have to produce their own players and I’m always of the view that if you’re young enough I think you’re good enough I think I’ll throw you in because you have to learn at some point.
"The club has got kids coming through, it doesn’t matter to me if you’re young or not, if I think you deserve it I’ll play you.
"They know that. Judge it by my own career. I needed a manager to have faith in me at 15 to throw me in and he threw me in. You learn, you go back out the side and you come back in and it was really at 16 that I started to make a move on it and it went from there. I needed the manager to have the belief in me to throw me in.”