Stoke-on-Trent Live

Congratulations to Freddie Anderson and Jaden Dixon on making their Stoke City debuts at the age of 17 this week, alongside fellow 17-year-old Sol Sidibe – and to Anderson for scoring too and to 18-year-old Emre Tezgel for getting his first Stoke goal from the bench.

The opposition may have been Carlisle United from League Two but the Carabao Cup is a good chance for clubs like Stoke, at this stage of the club’s cycle, to give talented lads like this a chance to show what they can do. If you’re really thinking you can win the cup then you wouldn’t be making so many changes but this was the right thing to do now.

A club which plans for the future has to keep the door open to 17-year-olds. It seems to me like a big part of what Stoke should be about right now.

Anderson came to Stoke from Manchester City at the age of 16 last summer because he saw a route to the first team. It would be a hard job for Man City to persuade me to sign a deal with them at that age because the door is all-but closed unless you’re going to be an international superstar – and even then you have to hit those heights very quickly.

It will have been the same for Jaden Dixon at Tottenham and Chinonso Chibueze, a winger who has joined the under-21s from Chelsea recently hoping he can make the same kind of swift progress to catch Steven Schumacher’s attention.

Parents will be looking for the right club for a player’s career and the players will be looking around at which clubs are giving opportunities. There are clubs who seem to stockpile kids to make sure that no one else can have them – and to make money as a business model, rather than footballers for themselves – won’t appeal to everyone. Do you want to spend years being sent out on loan?

Anderson is very tall and he’ll bulk out. He comes from strong stock with his dad, Viv, who was a supreme athlete. Modern managers would have loved Viv. He was decent with his link-up play and covered an exceptional amount of ground, hard to breakdown and quick to counter-attack. He was perfect for Brian Clough.

I’m not expecting this generation to immediately start 40 games this season but I hope their progress is not blocked by loan signings which have previously arrived just for the sake of signings. The likes of Sead Haksabanovic, Chiquinho, Bersant Celina, Tarique Fosu, Gavin Kilkenny have all come and gone in the last couple of years with little impact except to take up a space in the changing room that could have gone to one of our own.

I know it’s the way of the world in the Championship but it drives me mad. The loan market should be there only for superlative talent that you couldn’t otherwise afford, not just to pack out a squad. You end up replacing loans with loans, developing players for a year at a time, and going around in circles without getting anywhere as a club.

In an ideal world I’d like to see Schumacher pick his matches to test out Dixon and Anderson and the rest. They can get a taste in the cup and there will be times in the season when there are injuries and they are called upon but there should also be other matches here and there when you can drop them in. It gives them a test, motivates others by showing that you’re willing to give them a sniff and keeps the senior pros on their toes. That’s a healthy system.

Don’t underestimate how much it spurs on other kids who are coming through the ranks. You build a spirit. You could even tell after that Carlisle match how much that group was buzzing because they’d played and they’d won.

When I was their age I could look to the likes of Smithy and Jackie Marsh and they were great players in their own right but we were also coming through together. We were in it together, knowing it was our job, our responsibility, to take the club as far as we could take it.

So well done and good luck lads, keep it going and hopefully Stoke will make the right decisions to help you every step along the way.

It’ll be a good challenge for the first team too this afternoon at a Watford side who have scored two goals in their first two games, including a hat-trick from our old friend Tom Ince on Tuesday night.

They’re firing and it’s a good game to have at this stage of the season when the transfer window is still open. It’s not too late for the boss to just finalise his thoughts about what’s needed, what’s missing or who can be a big part of things over the next nine months.

Steven Schumacher says Stoke City want, plan and expect to build the team around Bae Junho and Wouter Burger as speculation about summer departures is all-but dismissed.

Playmaker Junho, aged 20, has been in the headlines in the Netherlands amid reports that he is of interest to Feyenoord while there have been whispers in England that midfielder Burger, aged 23, is on the radar of Tottenham Hotspur.

But it would take an extraordinary bid to loosen Stoke’s grip on player of the year Junho, with hope he will be able to maintain the trajectory of his progress. Burger is also not for sale as he is tasked with proving he can be a leading midfielder in the Championship.

AS IT HAPPENED: Crewe 1 Stoke 2

Schumacher said: “I’d just say to our fans that speculation is good, it shows that our players are doing something well but there’s been no bids for either of them.”

He added: “Absolutely (they are a big part of my plans), both of them are. They were brought here last summer and knew the first season was going to be a season for them to bed in and as the season went on both of those players got stronger, especially Junho. Then Wouter’s come back in brilliant condition in the off-season and his pre-season has looked really sharp.

“We want to build our team around our best players not lose them.”

Junho and Burger both started a 2-1 win for Stoke at Crewe Alexandra last night in their third friendly of the summer. There have been three signings so far – Viktor Johansson, Eric Bocat and Ben Gibson – all of whom started at Gresty Road.

There is more business to do and there will be exits for players who will need to move to secure the kind of game time they want but Stoke do not need to sell to meet Financial Fair Play constraints nor fund further arrivals.