SAINTS academy graduate James Ward-Prowse insists the B team’s recent torrid spell of form will have been “a good learning experience for them.”
James Ward Browse said: “Yeah of course it’s difficult (seeing them lose every week), it’s difficult to see the academy and B team struggle. But I think this is all part of the players’ journeys, you know you’re not always going to have wins every week. It’s different when you get to the Premier League, if you do lose a lot of games it soon catches up with you. But I think it was a good learning experience for them and I’m sure they have got the right people around them to get them through the spell and make sure they learn through this period of their careers.”
A number of Saints’ youngsters have caught the eye with top performances in the last five, including the aforementioned wing-back Small, central defender Dynel Simeu, attacker Kazeem Olaigbe and right-back Lewis Payne. Two of the under-18s, who have been appearing in the under-23 competitions, in Dominic Ballard and Kamari Doyle, both 16, received call-ups to England under-17s. Gareth Southgate gave him his senior England bow in 2017, for whom he has played nine times since. Appointed as Saints’ club captain in 2020. He’s come a long way from the days as a Saints scholar, secretly training at Portsmouth-local non-league side Havant & Waterlooville to get tougher. Ward-Prowse knows what it takes to ascend from a talented kid in the academy to the man, although you’d be surprised to hear that knowledge is yet to really be picked at.
James Ward Browse said: “I haven’t had any of that this season yet no, but obviously we have some of the lads train with us and be around us so that would be a good time to maybe have a chat with them and see how they’re doing. That’s a different challenge for them, when they come up and train with us, to be at a certain level, so there’s a good demand on them but that’s part of parcel of being a Premier League footballer.”
