Boss Paul Lambert believes the current crop of youngsters coming through at Town is “one of the most exciting groups of young players” he has seen and says they are the future of the club.

Lambert, who last week pledged to stay at Portman Road next season regardless of which division the Blues are in, believes the club has to take a different approach going forward, one which doesn’t involve a succession of loan players coming in every transfer window as has been the case for much of the last decade.

“It can’t keep doing what it’s done, it’s an impossibility, it has to have a structure right through the club,” he said.

“We’ve got to have an identity where everybody is clear on it, everybody knows what’s going to happen, the fans know what’s going to happen, you guys [the media] know what’s going to happen - this is the way Ipswich Town is going to go. The identity of [the way] we’re doing it.

“You can’t keep going out and loaning people all the time. It stops the pathway for young players coming through.

“With young players coming through you might not get instant results but you get the identity back at your club and [from there] keep growing and growing and growing and it’ll just take care of itself.

“But you cannot keep doing what you’re doing, you may as well throw money out in the street, it doesn’t work.”

Lambert has signed six players this window - including three on loan - but he reiterated that that’s purely to do with the circumstances the club currently finds itself in rather than his long-term thinking.

“The lads needed help,” he continued. “I think everybody recognised they needed that help, lads to come in and help them.

“As a core group, they’ve been absolutely brilliant, everybody has. But ideally you don’t want to go through that every single summer or January.

“It’s too much, far too much, it can’t happen. The turnaround here in the summer either way has to be big. But you have to get your own players in here, plus you have to have a pathway for the young ones to come through.

“As I’ve said before, this club has got some really good young players here, really good. And it’s gone under the radar. I could go through them all, Andre Dozzell, Flynn Downes, Teddy Bishop, Jack Lankester, you can go right through to the U18s, there are some really good kids there as well.

“You can go right through to the U16s and U15s but they need a pathway through and they need a manager that says, ‘OK, I’m going to give you a chance if you’re good enough’.”

Asked about Leicester youngster Callum Elder, 23, being in the team ahead of Myles Kenlock with some feeling the Blues would be better off long-term giving the 22-year-old academy product experience, he responded: “The club has to get back to get to its own. I said before that if Jonas Knudsen says he wants to go we have to go and get somebody to help Myles.

“If anything happens to Myles then there’s no real left-back at the club apart from Bailey Clements, who is only a kid. They're only kids.

“That’s the big burden of it, so we had to go and get somebody to help Myles. And Myles has done really fine, Myles is in the reckoning as well.

“He’s come through the ranks but he’s a young guy as well. You can’t give anybody experience, that has to come through experience, that has to come through making mistakes or playing well, that's no problem. There’s that fine line of the balancing act, I think.”

He says throwing youngsters into the current situation can potentially harm their development: “It’s unfair on them. As I said before, I got thrown in when I was 15 myself but I went into a team where everybody was a man really.

“I had great players round about me at that time in my upbringing. I went into a dressing room predominantly full of men.

“We’ve got young guys we’re trying to help, which is too many and we needed James Collins to come in, Collin Quaner to come in, Will Keane to come in, Alan Judge to come in, guys that had done it to give them that help.

“But the future for the club, the young players here, it’s one of the most exciting groups of young players I’ve seen. It could be unbelievable with them.”

He added: “This club’s got some really good young players and I think it’s gone under the radar, if I’m honest - Dozzell, Downes, Bishop, Lankester, they’re all really, really good young football players.

“The club's in a really good place with the young kids coming through, and even below that there’s a really good under belly there.

“I think it’s gone under the radar, I think people have bypassed it, there are some really good young players that given a little bit of time they’re going to make a helluva impact here for sure.”

He says the Championship can be a tough division to introduce youngsters: “To an extent it is. As I said before, this club has undersold itself with the young players its got, go back to the lads I’ve mentioned.

“Those lads are handling themselves at a high level under me. They’re getting into a way of playing under me, they know exactly the way I am as a person, the way we want to work.

“Next year they’ll be a lot stronger for it, miles stronger for it. They need a little bit of help but young players have to get thrown in at some point to see if they can sink or swim.

“Where they need me is probably to take the chance on them. That’s where they need a manager to say, ‘OK, it doesn’t matter how young you are, I think you’re good enough, I’ll throw you in’.

“I was fortunate I had a manager like that [Alex Smith at St Mirren] when I was growing up and that’s the way I’ve always done it. I can go back to any club I’ve been at, I’ve always given you players a chance.

“I needed somebody to do that for me and thankfully he did. If he’d never done it, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

Lambert repeated his intention of instilling his way of playing into academy teams: “They don’t play my way [at present]. We’ll try and implement it, sweep it right through and everybody has to go the same way as the first team.

“I think that’s important regardless of results. Results don’t matter at that age. Their own egotism doesn’t matter, it’s about getting players through to the first team.

“Everybody plays the same way so the transition from U15s to U16s [and upward], everybody knows so when they do hopefully eventually hit the first team they know exactly the movements that’s going to happen that we asked for, they know exactly what’s going on.

“We will have a coaches meeting really shortly to tell everybody how this club is going to play and everybody that comes to the football club has to play that way.

“I think that’s important for everybody and everybody’s clear rather than the identity of the player being all wrong and you’re identifying player to fit into that system.”

Photo: TWTD

Mark added 18:41 - Jan 24 I'm not sure Elder starting ahead of him helps Myles Kenlock.
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markytitfc added 19:13 - Jan 24 Phil We all know that Paul Lambert is the Town/blues boss/manager. Please stop announcing it at start of every story! Call me petty, it just bugs me😀😀
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Pecker added 19:18 - Jan 24 The future always looks bright and then we loan out or sell our youngsters. Time to keep them, add them to the first team squad and slowly introduce them to the starting X1. Play them not loan them.
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jpring89 added 20:26 - Jan 24 In other words put our youngsters first and stop spunkin dead money on other teams players and their youngsters. Dropping down a league may be a blessing in allowing that to happen.
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Lathers added 20:34 - Jan 24 Dozzell needs games if he's going to be an asset in L1 next season so surely he needs to go out on loan in L1 for the next few months. Bishop is another one who needs to go out on loan (maybe with a 24 hour recall) as he badly needs games. Nydam is another one who seemed to be making strides but has disappeared. Downes/Lankester are getting games as is Woolfenden. Kenlock should play ahead of Elder, fact. That's pretty much the core of next seasons team along with some older heads to add experience. Once we get to March then I hope PL just gives game time to those who will be here and play next season.

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RegencyBlue added 21:44 - Jan 24 Question is how many will stay here if we go down to League 1?? Some will be sold to fund the £7 million lost TV income and others will not want to be playing League 1 football. We have a decent crop of youngsters but the vultures will be circling!
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BlueySwede added 08:17 - Jan 25 Hm...All well said and I agree. However, Bishop has been excellent in his last outings, still Chalobah keeps starting. Same with Elder/Kenlock, Lankester/Quaner. Yes, you could argue that this is not the time for youngsters, but when is it really?
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rugbytomc added 09:08 - Jan 25 I think, as he often does, Lambert is talking sense here and talking a good (and encouraging) game. All fans will have opinions over who they think is a better player and who should start over whom. But right now we're trying to avoid relegation (which I think would be the best thing for the club) so Lambert is picking teams he thinks can best do that and so far I am happy to bow to his better judgement. I know the particular bug bear of some fans is Elder over Kenlock (especially after Elder's costly mistakes against Blackburn) but he has more first team experience than Kenlock and that is what Lambert is after and also ability wise, from what I've seen, they're about the same. Not sure Kenlock (or Emmanuel) will ever push on and make themselves first choice full backs for us at Championship level, that remains to be seen. Shame we can't just ship Knudsen out now and be done with him. Shame we can't bring in any more loans as Downing from Middlesborough would be amazing but probably out of our budget!

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Beattiesballbag added 11:29 - Jan 25 So many contradictions in what he says above, says exactly what needs to be done & what has been done wrong in the past.......then does exactly the same thing...........like a reoccuring nightmare. Kenlock is not a youngster he's 22 ! Warky was a youngster at 17 when Sir Bobby put him in against the Angels of Leeds Utd in that brilliant cup run of 75.....not to mention all the other 17 year olds he blooded when they didn't get the protection from the ref's that they get now! The late & great Kevin Beattie made odd mistakes in his first few games but wasn't dropped after a couple because of his age. They're not getting help they're getting replaced......again.

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jayessess added 13:32 - Jan 25 Chalobah b. July 1999 Dozzell b. May 1999 Downes b. January 1999 Bishop b. July 1996 Chalobah, not ours, 24 starts Dozzell, ours, 4 starts Downes, ours, 13 starts Bishop, ours, 2 starts Of course, Paul.
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