Town CEO Mark Ashton says he has spoken to Blues legend Terry Butcher about ambassadorial, community and commercial work he could do for the club.
TWTD revealed last month that Butcher had been told there will not be a role on the coaching staff in 2021/22, the former England skipper having worked alongside Kieron Dyer with the U23s as they finished second in Professional Development League Two South last season.
A shareholder at last night’s PLC EGM said he felt that moving the Blues’ academy from category two to category one would benefit players’ development due to the higher standard of games programme and also asked about Butcher’s departure.
"Regarding the academy cat one, I actually disagree with your comments,” Ashton said. "If you look at the record that we had at Bristol City on developing players in a cat two academy, it was just phenomenal - nine first-team debuts last season, multi-million pounds-worth of players sold to Premier League clubs.
"I think the EPPP [Elite Player Performance Plan] system has been in place a long time and it has its place, that’s for sure, and I’m pleased that we’re a cat two academy, but it’s much more than that, it’s about developing players as quickly as possible for the first team and that comes in a multitude of ways.
"The EPPP system, cat two has its place, the loan system has a place. I think it’s fair to say that [academy manager] Lee [O’Neill] and I have talked about this where we have an academy that’s been coaching led in the past and that will change because it will be balanced between coaching and recruitment.
"I will not be afraid to bring in talent from outside the area if we think it makes us better. That’s in addition to the local talent that we want to bring through, but we will want to, if you like, increase the production line in the academy to get players through to the first team.
"[Manager] Paul [Cook] and I talk about this often. I’ve talked about it with many other managers. It’s making sure that that boys are ready for first-team football and there’s a big difference between academy football, U23s football and first-team football.
"In regards to Terry Butcher, I sat down with Terry when I first came in, it was an honour to meet him, we had a really good conversation.
"There simply isn’t a slot. We have slots in our academy. We are in a good position with all our academy staff. Kieron Dyer has stepped formally into the U23s role and we have a criteria we have to hit from the cat two system that we tick all the boxes.
"We have a good relationship with Terry, we’re talking to him about some of the work that he may be doing, ambassadorial, any community, on the commercial side for us.
"But on the football side, we’re quite clear about where we want to go. We will look at the academy. We’ll continue to review it, we’ll continually review the U23s and the development squad because it’s about getting those boys through to the first team and having them competitively ready as quickly as we can.”
O’Neill added: "For us, it’s really important to raise the standard. We had a lot of players make debuts last year, but it’s really important that the players that do step into that arena out in front of us actually make the team better.
"That’s got to be sustained over a period of time. It’s about making sure we can develop the quality of player that is going to go into the first team and actually make the first team better, fundamentally to get us out of the league.
"There’s a review of everything at the moment and the EPPP itself is under review, not only every academy that goes through it, the system.
"There are a lot of teams out there, there are only so many teams that can be category one and we will look at each programme individually over a period of time.
"Talking to the manager, the new CEO and the owners, it’s really important for us to all work together to try and develop the next batch of talent for the club in the future, because it’s really important for the long-term sustainability.”