Arguably the best player to come through the Derby County Academy in recent years won his first senior international cap for England on Saturday when he replaced Gareth Barry. The player, of course, is Tom Huddlestone and, unfortunately, he is no longer a Rams player.
Huddlestone, now 22, made 95 appearances for Derby County between 2002 and 2005 without scoring a single goal. He made his debut on the opening day of the 2003-04 season under George Burley and went on to establish himself as a key player for the now former Scotland manager.
In January 2005, Huddlestone signed for Tottenham Hotspur, although he continued to play for the Rams until the end of that season. How much did Derby County receive from Spurs for the talented midfielder? Your guess is as good as mine. With add-ons, the potential fee could’ve been as much as £2.5 million, but few of those add-ons materialised, and many speculate it was as little as £250,000. All Rams fans agree, though, Tom Huddlestone was sold on the cheap by the Three Amigos.
The shame of the England friendly against Brazil, apart from the disappointing result and performance, was that Huddlestone didn’t appear until the 82nd minute. Give youth a chance, Signor Capello, what are you going to learn about Tom Huddlestone in eight minutes?
Derby County manager Nigel Clough, on the other hand, does have a reputation for giving youth a chance. Youngsters Mark O’Brien, Mark Dudley, Ben Pringle, Arnaud Mendy and Greg Mills have already been handed their Rams debuts by Clough.
Another youngster, Mitch Hanson, was registered during the defensive injury crisis but, ironically, was not involved at all because of a knee injury. In goal, with Saul Deeney unavailable, young goalkeeper Ross Atkins was registered in time to watch the Coventry City game from the bench.
This is all very commendable, and good for youth development, but through it all there have been two glaring omissions.
For weeks now Rob Hulse and Paul Dickov have been the only fit strikers at the club, against Ipswich Town the Rams only had one fit striker, but none of the young strikers were registered. This season one young goalkeeper, three young defenders, and three young midfielders have been registered, but no young strikers.
The reserves have played six games so far this season in the Totesport.com Central Division. Aleksandar Prijovic has scored four goals in five games and Henrik Ojamaa two goals in four games, impressive strike rates but neither has been registered for the senior team.
I can only conclude that the manager doesn’t rate either of them. That might be the case, but what I can’t understand is that in three of our last four Coca-Cola Championship games we had empty seats on the substitutes bench because there weren’t enough fit players to fill it.
So what had Nigel Clough got to lose? Where’s the risk in registering Prijovic or Ojamaa and giving them a seat on the substitutes bench? It’s not as if Chris Porter, Kris Commons, or Steve Davies were going to be sitting there.
I don’t understand it!
Stuart Hughes
19th November 2009
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