Blues boss Paul Lambert says he’ll have no qualms about fielding 17-year-old midfielder Liam Gibbs again at Plymouth on Saturday and believes young players are getting more of a chance at Town under his management than they have for some years.
Bury St Edmunds-born Gibbs made his first league start in last Saturday’s 2-0 home defeat to Charlton before being left on the bench at Oxford on Tuesday.
"He’s in the squad at the minute, we’ll see how everybody is,” Lambert said when asked if he’d have any worries about involving Gibbs again at Home Park. "He’s a really good player, a really talented footballer.
"But as I’ve said before, I say it every time, he needs a little bit of time to develop and there’s no pressure.”
Reflecting on what Gibbs brings to the side, he added: "He’s really clever with the ball, he’s a really intelligent player. You only really need to tell him something once and he takes it in.
"That’s the sign of a good player, when they take it in first time then you know you’ve got a really good player on your hands. But again, without getting carried away, he has got a chance.”
Is it important that young players feel they have a chance of breaking into the senior side.
"The way our club is at the minute, which I’ve tried to explain, is that we cannot go out there and spend, unless we sell somebody,” he said.
"What the kids are getting here is chances under me, and that’s probably not happened for a number of years.
"If you take out Andre [Dozzell] the other night, the five homegrown players [that started, Armando Dobra, Jack Lankester, Luke Woolfenden and Aaron Drinan] I’m not sure they had 20 appearances between them. It just shows you that young ones are getting a chance.
"The future of the club’s massive for them. If you keep them going, keep them on the right road then they’ll be good players.”
Asked whether he can see something in the youngsters’ personalities when they step-up and train with the senior pros, Lambert said: "There is that but I think the big thing for me is keeping their feet on the ground. You can’t give them too much too soon.
"The way the modern world is and the modern young player, they get one training session and they think they’ve made it. That’s the pitfalls of it, and that’s what I don’t want to happen.
"You try and shelter them away from that glory thing just after one appearance. It’s impossible, every day of your life you have to sacrifice until you finish playing.
"And that’s my job, to try and keep their feet on the ground, not get carried away, not too much too soon, and that’s what we’ll try and do because it’s the right upbringing to give them.”
But at the same time making sure they’re confident when they’re out on the field? "One hundred per cent. When they play, what I will say to them is if you’re young enough, you’re good enough and I think that’s important.
"If they can play, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s the aftermath of it where they think they’ve arrived or ‘I’m a first-team player, I should be in there every time’.
"For however quickly you impress me, it’s very easy for a young player to go the other way and then you think to yourself ‘OK, you’re getting too aloof and too ahead of yourself’.
"That’s the secret of it, that’s why I say you have to sacrifice your life every single day as a footballer.”