Sam Allardyce backs West Brom kids for bright future

The two Midlands rivals will meet at Villa Park today – with the winner set to face Liverpool in the final.

Last weekend, Allardyce opted to include Taylor Gardner-Hickman, 19, and Caleb Taylor, 18, in his match day squad for the trip to Arsenal.

And the boss revealed he would have had more youngsters involved with the first-team this season if coronavirus protocols hadn't stopped him.

"The bubble has been lifted somewhat and that allowed us to have them (Gardner-Hickman and Taylor) train with the first-team recently," Allardyce said.

"And we then thought we’d give them the experience of travelling with us to Arsenal which is very important.

"The sad thing is that me and Sammy (assistant boss Sammy Lee) normally have six or seven academy players in training on a day-to-day basis.

"That gives us opportunities to see them up against the first-team.

"That makes it much easier to make a decision on them than it is watching them play in the youth cup or the under-23s because that level of football is much lower down the spectrum compared to playing in the first-team.

"Playing against the first-team players in training on a regular basis has a far greater judgement value for me.

"That hasn’t been able to happen because of this horrible pandemic we have suffered.

"I haven’t seen a lot of these wonderful players that are doing so well in the youth cup and in the under-23s.

"But they have done very well and hopefully there is a bright future for a few of them. That will be very important for this football club."

While Allardyce wishes he had been able to spend more time working with the club's youngsters, he says coaches Robbie Stockdale and James Morrison – who was promoted from the under-23s – keep him up to date with that's going within the youth ranks.

"The under-18s have done really well to get to the semi finals," the Dudley-born chief added.

"I’m really sad this pandemic has happened because we may have found that we wanted to maybe risk one or two youngsters in the first team, maybe coming off the bench.

“I’m disappointed about that, but we do keep in touch. Mozza (Morrison) does, obviously, because that’s where he’s come from, and Robbie.

“Unfortunately even if they’re playing well, we have to wait to get them in the bubble – all the procedures of course they must go through – so hopefully we can do that between now and the end of the season.

“But we have to say 'well done lads' for what they have done this season – not just the players, but the coaches and staff who look after the team.”