‘They can’t have been up on the PlayStation Thursday night’ – Kevin Nugent outlines how Millwall prepare the under-21s for first-team football.

KEVIN Nugent explained how Millwall prepares its under-21 players for first-team calls up.

Since taking over as Lions manager on December 30, Alex Neil has given debuts to several academy players, including George Evans, Ra’ees Bangura-Williams, and Sheldon Kendall.

Bangura-Williams appeared in thirteen games across all competitions after scoring on his debut in January, while George Evans played the final four games of the season with Lukas Jensen and Liam Roberts both injured, winning man of the match in the Lions’ 1-0 victory over Swansea City on April 26.

 

Nugent believes they both fully utilised the opportunity presented to them.

“It’s interesting, isn’t it, because you say who’s ready, who’s not ready, and when that player gets an opportunity, they’ve got to be ready,” Nugent told reporters at NewsAtDen. “They need to seize that opportunity.

“I believe George Evans has taken that opportunity. Ra’ees has seized that opportunity. Romain Esse took advantage of the opportunity that presented itself.

“Sometimes the opportunity does not provide a clear path for how it will unfold. It doesn’t just say, ‘Okay. You know what? We’ve said he’s very good. Let us put him in. This is the football world in general, not just Millwall, but you get in by default sometimes. Someone sustained an injury the day before training, and there is no other position available. ‘How is he getting along? Yes, he is doing very well. Okay, bring him into the squad.

“That’s why we try to teach the players that their lives revolve around football. They couldn’t have been playing PlayStation on Thursday night because they could be called up by a manager on Friday afternoon or morning training and make their Championship debut.

“They must be willing to take that risk, and this is an important part of their education process. That is a football education. It can also serve as a life lesson at times. We get all this, and we bring that into how they work in the community; they do different stuff. So it’s not just when they’re with us. As a scholar, it’s not just a football education they get.

“They get quite a holistic approach to it as well and and how they deal with situations where we get a lot of people coming in and giving talks, and our media staff do it as well with how to use social media, if you’re doing interviews.

“Getting into the first team, there’s a constant update on the players. Sometimes it’s a smooth pathway, someone’s built their time in, they’ve been a sub for ten games. You think, you know what? He’s ready to go in. Other times, it’s bang, you’re in today. Ra’ees was a little bit of, right, you’re in. Then you’ve got to be ready to take that opportunity.”

Nugent has regular meetings with Alex Neil, academy director Scott Fitzgerald, and director of football Steve Gallen, where they discuss who might be ready to make the step up to the first team.

“We have a daily meeting, but that’s generally about the logistics of training, what players will be training with us, with them, what times they’re training, whose using the meeting room,” Nugent said. “That’s the general thing with those ones.

“But on a regular basis, we’ll meet up with Steve Gallen, with Fitz [academy director Scott Fitzgerald], with the manager, and we will be chatting about the players. We’ll say how they’re looking, what they’ve been looking like, what do you think they could work on, and different ideas.

“That is a constant, you’re looking at probably two or three times a week. Just generally, it might be over a cup of tea, it doesn’t have to be a formal meeting, but it’s something that the manager is well aware of, how the players are doing.

“He and his staff try to get to most of the games that we have, certainly at home, and they’ll have members of staff who will watch our away games as well. So that’s fantastic. He shows a real interest in our under-21s group, which is fantastic for the football club, really.”

Neil has shown a willingness to trust youth – something Nugent thinks is vital to the pathway from the academy to the first team.

“He’s absolutely key to it,” Nugent said.  “If someone doesn’t want to put in a player, they’re not going to put him in.

“But he’s quite relaxed about it and how we talk about it. He’s managed for a long time now, and he’s been very good, and he’s not phased about putting young lads in the side, which is really good from our point of view.”

Nugent takes pride in seeing his players progress to the first team.

“It’s so nice when lads do, because we spend a lot of time with them, and some lads have come through the system from a really young age, and then some will join a little bit later, like Ra’ees, which comes down to your recruitment,” Nugent said. “But when they get in, it’s a bit nerve-wracking sometimes. When they get an opportunity, they’ve got to take it, and the lads, I think, they certainly did.

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