Chief executive Derek Bowden says the club is not placing less of an emphasis on its academy despite the recent redundancies of coaches Richard Hall and Sean Thacker. The exits are the latest results of a review which also saw Sammy Morgan take over from Tony Humes as academy manager.

Bowden told TWTD: "There is no diminution in the importance of the academy. We've just restructured it. The budget is a little bit less because the headcount is down, but it's not been reduced in any other way.

"The budget is around £950,000 per year which is at the very top end of academies in this division. There are only one or two which are higher and they would definitely be sides which were in the Premier League until recently. One of those will be Charlton and I'm not sure what Charlton's budget will be like next year.

"It's also middling for the Premier League. A million quid or thereabouts on an academy is pretty good for a Premier League side, let alone a Championship club.”

Bowden explained the situation with Hall and Thacker: "They were both made redundant as part of the restructuring of the academy under Sammy Morgan. We've consolidated some of the roles and there were four coaches and only two positions.

"All four coaches applied for the two positions and Chris Kiwomya and Gerard Nash won out and sadly Richard and Sean were made redundant.

"There are also quite a few part-time people who drift in and drift out and we've also now got Bryan Klug involved in coaching the academy and Sammy running it and also involved in some coaching. There are enough full-time coaches for the number of teams we've got and they are supplemented by part-time coaches as and when required.

"We had too many full-time coaches for the roles that were there. It's a pity, no one likes to see people made redundant, but it's a more efficient way of running the academy.”

Bowden says there are no plans to scrap any age groups: "There will be the same number of teams. There's no attempt to reduce the number of teams or number of training sessions or move from an academy to something else.

"There will be the same number of coaching hours covered by a smaller number of full-time coaches, organised in a different way. All five development centres will also remain.”

Bowden says there will be no further departures: "We're not expecting any more change. We have completed the review.”

The club chief executive also denied a report which claimed that 15 off-field employees have left the club over the last year: "I've not added it up, but it sounds high to me. People have left and not been replaced, but others have joined. I've not done the maths, but I don't think it's 15. We look at head count rather than number of departures.

"The head count is pretty static. There are 158 members of staff across the club including coaches now, whereas this time last year there were 162.”

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