Wolves committed to young stars

Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey insists the club remain committed to producing homegrown players as it prepares to blood a new development team.

Bringing through players through the academy has become more difficult with a higher quality of player needed for the Premier League, a fact reinforced by yesterday's release of homegrown duo Mark Little and Daniel Jones.

But the club's annual seven-figure commitment is backed up by their quiet belief that they have some future potential top flight players in their ranks.

The reserves side is expected to be made up of a homegrown development team including players such as Scott Malone and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing.

Moxey said: "Our commitment to our academy is unequivocal – we are absolutely 100 per cent behind it.

"We invest a huge amount of money year on year in the academy and we've slightly changed the structure to include a development group, because we believe that in football we discard young players too easily.

"But people also have to recognise that over the last two or three years, we've deliberately invested in this 'young and hungry' policy which means we've got one of the youngest teams in the Premier League.

"When you have the success that that team has had in getting into the Premier League, getting the youth team players to make an impact at the top level is incredibly difficult.

"And it gets more difficult the more successful the first team is. But rest assured we're committed to it and we're going to stick with it.

"We've got wonderful facilities at Aldersley and Compton, Kevin Thelwell is doing a great job and Steve Weaver as development manager is straddling between the first team and the academy.

"Unlike many managers, because we're on one site, Mick McCarthy integrates the youth team players with the first team training every week.

"If we could produce one player every year we would be absolutely thrilled.

"We have some really exciting talent in our youth ranks and hopefully they will break into our first team in the not too distant future."