Inside Derby's high-stakes mission to help future stars and 'crazy money' threat

Each week, hundreds of youngsters will pass through the gates of Derby County's training ground with the same dream.

From the under-9s to the under-21s, every pass, every goal and every training session is fuelled by the hope that one day it will lead to the ink drying on a professional contract.

For the few who make it, the reward is immense. For those tasked with guiding them there, so too is the responsibility.

It is a high-stakes pursuit that covers the full spectrum of emotions, overseen by a man who knows exactly how demanding - and rewarding - it can be.

Having spent 12 years at Derby, Jamie Smith has just about seen it all. In his new role as academy manager, he will shape the next generation.

"Intense is the best word, but thoroughly enjoyable," Smith says when asked to reflect on the last few months.

"I'm so fortunate. Over the 12 years I've been here, I've worked different jobs before that were really, really tough so every day driving in I feel very fortunate to be here and now I can have a real imprint on the whole system.

"The aim is to get players onto Pride Park and it's been really positive so far. Matt Hale, the former academy manager, was really helpful to me with the handover process.

"Ultimately, I've seen a lot of things in the 12 years that I've been in the building. I've been assessing over the last few months how we can improve and what needs to be done to get us to the next level.

"There's a lot of fact-finding, and there is also a lot of firefighting, which comes with an academy manager's job. If you could say to me, what does your schedule look like, there is no academy manager who could tell you what it looks like day to day.

"You can never control what 100 staff members have, and 180 players have to bring to your door. But I love my job. I love working with this group of staff and obviously the players and parents too. It's been a good start."

As a category A academy, Derby boasts an impressive track record of developing young talent that has broken into the first team. Jason Knight and Max Bird came through the ranks before sealing moves to Bristol City. Eiran Cashin was an integral part of the first team before sealing a £10m move to Brighton last January, while Omari Kellyman was educated at Derby before moving to Aston Villa and then being sold to Chelsea for £20m.

Owen Eames and Cruz Allen are the latest to edge towards John Eustace's first team, having both made appearances in the Championship last season. When the stakes are so high in the league table, it is hard to balance the need for results with promoting young players into the starting XI.

The old saying remains that if you're good enough, you're old enough. Derby have high hopes for Eames and Allen, who are the poster boys for the rest of the academy players in proving there is a pathway to Saturday afternoons playing in the Championship. But as Smith points out, their work has only just begun.

"Success for them is becoming established first team players," he says. "In my view, if they make 20 good first team appearances and that's a minimum of 30 minutes, which ideally come from starts, I think they can class themselves as real professional footballers.

"But they've made a great start and a great impression. We're proud of them. Are we surprised? Absolutely not. They've shown their talent and their robustness and resilience as they've gone through the system.

"We've got to make sure that we're preparing them ready for pre-season and what that looks like because the dream is to play for the first team.

"The aim will be that they come back, do the first team pre-season and then we'll assess where they're at. A lot of this is player-led, so they've got to make sure they come back and be fitter than the captain, Lewis Travis.

"If Owen wants to be playing in those positions, you've got to be fitter and do more than the first team players, because otherwise, why and how would you get in there?

"If you look at Owen, he's had a mixed journey at different times. He's always been the smallest in his group, and it would have been easy for him to throw in the towel, but you see his resilience, and he's a real fighter.

"He's an aggressive young man, and they're elite attributes to have. We're delighted with the pair of them but they've still got a lot to do. We've got to make sure they stay grounded and be mentally and physically ready for what the senior game looks like because it's incredibly challenging.

"But I think the really important thing for us as a club and as an academy is that we're showing if you do things right and you have the basic principles of what John Eustace (head coach) wants, what I want, what Stephen Pearce (chief executive) wants, then you will get the opportunity.

"It's then down to you, really, as an individual to take it."

How Derby ascertains who is ready to step up towards the first team isn't just decided on a whim or who has played well the week before.

There is this notion that an 18-year-old who scores a hat-trick in an academy game the week before is then automatically plunged in with the first team and left to sink or swim.

It is not like that. It's a carefully considered plan in which development is constantly tracked. Smith says a twice-yearly audit process is supported by weekly Tuesday meetings involving academy, recruitment, medical and first-team staff, ensuring decisions are collaborative rather than reactive.

"There will be myself, Rob Price, who's head of medicine and sports science for the club, Leigh Bromby (recruitment lead), Stephen Pearce, and John Eustace will be there, or certainly a member of first team staff will be there.

"We'll talk about the players, and I think the positive thing for me, and I say this to our younger parents, that some of our players' names are on the boards of the manager and the CEO, so they're in their thoughts.

"Those conversations are structured on a Tuesday, but there's so much organic conversation day to day. It's my job to make sure that opinion is then supported with a more holistic, longer-term view on what makes Owen tick or makes Cruz tick.

"Cruz is a really confident kid, so he'll go in there and mix it, and the manager is clear that he doesn't want you coming in and being passive in training.

"There's a line. There has to be a level of respect from the players to the senior pros, of course, but you've got to go and imprint yourself because you might only have one chance, and sometimes that is all you need.

"It's about being able to grasp that opportunity. We have great conversations, it's really fluid and shows we are building a successful culture."

But for all of Derby's work in trying to produce the next generation of talent for their own team, there is always the prospect of others trying to capitalise.

Clubs in the Premier League are always looking for the next big player and Derby have already felt the force of that in the last year when Arsenal swooped to sign Demiane Agustien who rejected the chance to stay at Pride Park.

The problem is that the money in the top flight often dwarfs what clubs further down the pyramid can offer. Only recently, reports surfaced that Chelsea and Manchester City were offering £40,000 to £50,000 a week to sign Josh Abe from Liverpool. He is 15.

In the end, he stayed at Anfield, but it underlines the financial packages on offer. What chance do Derby have when that wage alone exceeds what some of their own first-team players are paid?

There are also cases where some players across the country have been tapped up with promises of better contracts and higher pay.

"You see it in the Premier League that there are crazy amounts of money being offered at the moment for English players who have become a premium because of Brexit.

"Brexit had a big, big part of it. It saturated the English market more because we couldn't recruit or clubs couldn't recruit from overseas.

"The impact of that is that the premium's gone up in terms of English talent and it's just become a norm.

"I just think the system needs to make sure it has a check because we can't compete with £40-50k a week in wages.

"That's just not where we're at as a football club. All we can do is control the controllables. I keep saying, and I'll say this to my leadership team, that we've just got to worry about us. Moving at 16 years of age doesn't guarantee that you're going to become a professional footballer.

"Sometimes you've just got to hold fire and stay in the environment you're in. Make sure you're getting developed properly, you get your opportunity to train with the first team, which we do.

"We get players in the first team squad and for training. The money will follow later. But the market's the market and social media does its stuff in that respect.

"What we can control is making sure our parents are educated on how the parents of players get contacted and who follows them.

"That's what we can control as a football club, making sure that we're educating them to the point where they at least know they're checking their children's accounts to try to help and guide them.

"I'd hope the aspiration is still to become a professional footballer and a first-team player."

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