Mike Rigg answered a key question regarding Birmingham City’s Open House event about the club’s academy.
Birmingham City’s investment in the first team over the summer has made life more difficult for the club’s young players, admits academy technical director Mike Rigg.
Blues spent more than £20 million on 17 new players this summer to rebuild their squad after being relegated to League One. While many believed League One would be the venue for Blues to develop more of its youth stars, the reverse has happened.
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Brandon Khela is the club’s lone academy graduate currently in Chris Davies’ first-team squad, with only five appearances in all competitions. Blues’ lineup has more academy graduates from Brighton, Fulham, and West Bromwich Albion than their own.
“I was dreading this coming,” Rigg said when questioned about the dearth of academy players breaking through at the most recent Open House event. “It was something we anticipated and discussed every day.
“The talk we have in the club is about the pathway, and what has happened with the pathway is that the bar has been raised by the players that have arrived this summer, as well as the infrastructure that surrounds it.
“The academy has upped the bar, and our standards are rising as a result. We can’t keep doing what worked last year and the year before because the game has changed.
“It is a challenge. The alternative is to not give Chris any money, to not invest, and to let all of the youth players to play, but that is not the reality of our situation.
“Am I disappointed?” No, I believe it is simply a reflection of the issue we confront. We now have 11 players on loan, so it is a different path that we are pursuing. It is our responsibility to improve the bar inside the academy in order to progress to the first team.”
