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This article is part of Football FanCast’s In The Pipeline series, which takes a look at some of the most promising young talent either linked with clubs or emerging from their academies…
Southampton are no strangers to producing gems from their academy.
Impressively, the Saints have developed and brought through the likes of Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana, Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott over the years, selling them on for significant fees whilst continuing to churn out more quality footballers such as James Ward-Prowse.
Ralph Hasenhuttl, the man in charge at St Mary’s right now, is clearly keen to bring through the Saints’ youth prospects and has already involved the likes of Yan Valery and Michael Obafemi in his first-team.
Now, it looks like there’s another promising young talent who – by his own admission – is hoping to follow in the aforementioned Obafemi’s footsteps: Will Smallbone.
“We’ve been waiting for our chances and to see guys like Michael, Yan and Tyreke doing so well, it just gives everyone such a lift and shows that it can be done. Hopefully with the new manager coming in, if I keep playing well then I can catch the eye and try to make my debut with the first team as soon as I can.”
The attacking midfielder, who can also play in centre-midfield, has dazzled in the South Coast side’s academy and was impressively nominated for the Premier League 2 Player of the Year award last season due to some fine showings – he managed to hit 10 goals from midfield in what was his first taste of Under-23 action.
Hasenhuttl included the midfielder, as well as left-back Jake Vokins and Christoph Klarer on the Saints’ pre-season tour of Austria, and was seemingly impressed with the trio.
The former RB Leipzig boss said: “I see Will Smallbone doing a fantastic job in the centre of midfield, and I see Christoph Klarer at the back fighting and showing he has developed his game.
“That’s our way and the way we want to go – giving young players the chance to play and seeing them develop.”
It definitely seems as though Smallbone is in the perfect environment, under the perfect manager, to hone his skills and make the natural progression into the first-team at St Mary’s.
The club also seem keen to keep the precocious midfielder involved as they tied him down to a two-year contract extension back in December, with the 19-year-old having only signed his first professional deal in February of that same year.
Smallbone is definitely a player to keep an eye on at St Mary’s.
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