Assistant boss Stuart Taylor says young players have to “earn the right” to be involved in the club’s annual photo call, Armando Dobra, Idris El Mizouni, Corrie Ndaba, Aaron Drinan and Brett McGavin having been left out of this season’s which took place on Thursday.
It was reported elsewhere that the quintet travelled to Portman Road to join the 24 senior players for the photos but were told by manager Paul Lambert that they weren’t required, which Taylor says wasn’t the case.
"I think what was printed in the paper was a whole lot of lies and wherever that came from, who knows,” he said.
"They were left out of the photo purely because they’re young kids. It happens at every football club across the world.
"There are stages in a football career where it’s about playing in enough games to go and earn the right to be in things like the photo call. There are also other elements in the progression of a young player coming through at a football club.
"I just think it’s disappointing that someone’s come out with the lies that were told, that they turned up at Portman Road, which wasn’t the case, that the manager told them then and pulled them out, that wasn’t the case, they were told well before that. Nobody turned up at Portman Road and wasn’t in the photo call.
"I find that disappointing that those lies because it makes the young players feel that there’s an awkward situation for them.
"They were told, they understood it, they were totally fine with it, and they were also told they would be involved in Saturday’s game as well, so to say they were taken out of the first team and put in the [U23s] game [against Norwich] on Friday isn’t true.
"I find it a shame because of the supporters, we’re all trying to pull together. It’s something that the manager’s done since he came to the football club, he’s tried to get the supporters and the community and the club together, hence why we’ve done the community work.
"And the idea of that is to pull everybody in the same direction to go and get success, but somebody is obviously working against that. And as a supporter, I wouldn’t be happy that somebody’s putting that in the papers. I wouldn’t be happy as a supporter paying my season ticket money and somebody’s being disruptive like that.
"That’s the reason for the young kids not being in the photos. You have to, like at every club in the football world, you have to earn the right to get into things like the team photo.
"If we were to turn around and say that anybody who had made a first-team appearance is going to be in it, there would have been about 40 in the team photo.
"The guy would have had to stand down at the Copdock roundabout to take it because there would have been that many in it because this is a football club where we do believe in the young kids, we want them to go and progress and develop.
"And we do it right and they do all make an appearance and do all play and get challenges like today, like all pre-season games.
"They’ve had an opportunity to go and play, they’ve all had that chance to go and develop and progress their careers but there are things they are not ready for and it’s things like that, simple as that.
"Nothing untoward, just as straightforward as that. They need to earn the right to go and achieve certain things like earning the right to come up and train with the first team.
"Once you earn the right to train with the first team, then you earn the right to maybe be in the first-team squad, then you earn the right to maybe make an appearance. Happens everywhere.”
He added: "It’s keeping players hungry, keeping players having that motivation of ‘I want to get in the first team for next season, so I’m going to make sure I go and make so many appearances, I’ll try that little bit harder’.
"I think a lot of kids get too much too soon and they lose that desire and they lose that hunger. I’m not saying those kids are like that at all, but it’s still nice to leave something there to be hungry for and have that desire for.
"Brett McGavin’s he’s been up training with the first team so much, he’s maybe not made that many appearances for different reasons.
"Corrie Ndaba has been up training with the first team since practically the day we walked through the door, he was one the gaffer targeted straight away, he took him out of the U23s and said ‘You come with us’.
"And for whatever reasons [he’s not made a competitive first-team appearance yet], it’s harder to put a centre-back in than a centre forward, everybody knows that.
"But Corrie’s been up training with the first team quite a bit, he’s gone back down to the U23s, like all the other kids have done, again it’s part of their progression, part of the development, so there’s no issues on anything to do with that.
"We’re a club that believes in its kids, the gaffer’s done that everywhere he’s been, if they’re good enough, they’re old enough, and they go and play.”
One of those to get their chance today was young left-back Tommy Smith.
"Tommy’s a young kid and young kids at this club always get their chance, if they’re good enough they’ll always get a chance," Taylor said.
"Towards the end, we had an abundance of them with Idris, with Dobra, with Corrie, with Brett McGavin, who started the game.
"There are loads and loads of young kids. They were always involved today and we put some of them in the U23s game yesterday to give them minutes to top them up, which was good for them because it gave them game minutes but kept them involved with the first team today, which was great.”