SAINTS academy starlets can take renewed confidence as assistant Ruben Selles declares “a lot of the time it is about giving them the opportunity, not just their quality”.

The 38-year-old Spaniard arrived last week as manager Ralph Hasenhuttl’s new first-team lead coach, in the wake of coach departures at the end of the 2021-22 season.

Selles regularly worked as an assistant manager, including last season where he helped guide FC Copenhagen to winning their first league title in three years.

And it sounds like he is going to be keeping in with the young player philosophy at Saints, and perhaps encouraging his Austrian boss to show further faith in the young crop.

“I love when you can create an environment with a lot of players from the academy, when a lot of lads are arriving to the first team and performing,” Selles told the club website.

“A lot of the time it is about giving them the opportunity, not just about their quality. Sometimes we will prefer someone a little bit more experienced from the outside, somebody more exotic.

“But at the end of the day the boys that are educated in the academy and the young players that are coming from other clubs are hungry and sometimes have better abilities.”

Although no Premier League side gave more minutes to teenagers than Saints during the 2021-22 campaign, they were made up excuslively of Tino Livramento and Armando Broja.

Only Thierry Small from the academy made it onto the pitch at all for Hasenhuttl last campaign, given a 45 minute bow in the FA Cup versus Coventry City.

The likes of Kazeem Olaigbe, Kegs Chauke, Dynel Simeu and even 16-year-old Tyler Dibling made the bench – but all have had to be patient in waiting for a chance.

“They just need a little bit of love and hard work, a good programme for them, and they can shine,” Selles added.

“I’ve seen this many times from a lot of my boys – some of them being very successful from the very beginning, some of them with a little bit of a more bumpy road for periods.

“But if you can find the balance and promote some of the lads to the first team then you will have a strong dressing room with boys that know exactly what you want.”

He continued: “You know what they can give to you, and then the process is growing and growing and growing in this period.

“Then you are very proud of the work when those boys are growing up and being main players, key players for teams like Southampton and going to the different national teams and performing, so I’m very excited for that part of the job.”

A message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this article - we appreciate your support in reading the Daily Echo.

Subscribing to the Echo means you have unrestricted access to the latest news, features and Saints coverage - all with an advertising-light website.

You will also have full access to Saintsplus, your new home for Southampton FC tactical analysis, features and much, much more.

Don't take my word for it - subscribe here to see for yourself.

Follow the latest breaking news in the Southampton area by joining our Facebook group - Southampton News - Breaking News and Incidents

Follow the latest court and crime news on our dedicated Facebook group - Hampshire Court and Crime News