Youth Cup players backed to break into West Brom first team in the future

The young Baggies are this week gearing up for their first Youth Cup semi-final since 1978, and travel to face Manchester City on Monday, April 1.

Rayhaan Tulloch, 18, and Morgan Rogers, 16, will both feature for the under-18s after making their senior debuts in the FA Cup earlier this year.

But Scott predicts a number of their team-mates will also trouble the first team.

“Rayhaan and Morgan have already had exposure to that,” said Scott. “There’s a lot of players in that age group that have the potential to play for our first team.

“Obviously I don’t know how many because I haven’t got a crystal ball. The opportunities they’ve had this year gives the players hope and belief they can do.

“A lot of it is down to the players believing they can do it. There’s a number of players in this age group that will have careers in the game.

“Whether they play in our first team or do what Kemar (Roofe) and Tyler (Roberts) have done in finding another journey to get to where they want to go remains to be seen. Sometimes players have to do that.

“There’s a lot of players at the age group we believe can make a career out of the game. We want to produce as many as we can playing in our first team.

“There’s certainly a handful in there that could play in our first team in the next two to three years.”

Academy players Rekeem Harper, Sam Field and Kyle Edwards are already in the first-team squad.

“That goal Kyle scored the other day (against Brentford), I’ve seen him do that at 12, 13, 14,” said Scott.

“I’ve seen him pick the ball up from the goalkeeper, beat eight players and score the other end. We used to say if we had Kyle in our team, we wouldn’t lose!”

Meanwhile, former Albion academy player Matt Smith has signed a three-year contract extension at Manchester City.

The 19-year-old, who played for Wales in their 1-0 win over Slovakia at the weekend, joined City from the Baggies at the age of 14 and is currently on loan at FC Twente.