Mel Morris has vowed to rule with his head rather than his heart when it comes to player recruitment, but insists Derby County’s Academy is just as important as bringing in a player via a transfer.
Mel Morris has vowed to rule with his head rather than his heart when it comes to player recruitment, but insists Derby County’s Academy is just as important as bringing in a player via a transfer.
Over the last 18 months, the 59-year-old businessman, who completed a successful purchase of the club last week to become sole owner, has played a significant part in the club’s improvements not only on the field, but off it as well.
On Transfer Deadline Day, the Rams completed their eighth and ninth summer signings by adding Jacob Butterfield and Bradley Johnson to their ranks.
The pair have bolstered Paul Clement’s midfield options ahead of the resumption of the Sky Bet Championship season and Morris insisted it was a move that was necessary following the ‘brutal’ loss of Will Hughes on the opening day of the season.
Speaking to Rams Player HD, he said: “The thing that springs to mind with me is head or heart.
“There will be a lot of fans out there who will be hoping that I don’t rule by my heart and of course we have invested a lot in the playing squad during this transfer window.
“My belief, though, is that injuries have been a major problem for us and to lose Will Hughes, a top player not only within this squad but the Championship, was brutal.
“I made a commitment to Paul that if he had a major injury we would address it. We had no choice but to do that.
“I know fans hesitate and question whether what we are doing is a good deal, but it’s a bit like the housing market, one deal goes through and ultimately the prices of similar players rise.
“We had to get on board with that and get the players in place for where we wanted to go.”
Despite nine quality additions added to the playing staff, Morris firmly believes Derby’s Academy has a major role to play in the short and long term future of the club.
The club has made significant strides to improve its facilities not only to bring Derby within the Category One Status guidelines last summer, but to help inspire the stars of tomorrow.
As it stands, Morris is keen for Clement, the Derby Head Coach, to have three academy players within his first team squad.
Morris, though, does not just want to bring players through for the sake of it – he wants the Rams’ first team to be made of 50 per cent of their academy graduates within the next five years.
He added: “I’m very committed to what we need to do, but I’m also aware of the fact that there is a problem is always getting the cheque book out and getting a player in.
“The role for Paul today is to improve the players that we have in the building, but to have the depth that you need to be successful is important.
“That is something that we have spoken about, namely, how do we develop the academy at this football club.
“The last two seasons has seen us drastically raise the bar of the standard of football that we are playing at and that makes it tougher for the academy players to break into the squad.
“We have made a commitment that Paul will aim to have at least three academy players in the squad.
“We expect to see them used, we expect to see them play and develop. Having that depth, hopefully, will see us not being held hostage to injury this season and in the future.
“That’s something we have to do. I was up at the Training Centre not so long ago talking to some of the academy coaches.
“We are all aware of the EPPP (Elite Player Performance Plan), which is a great initiative by the Football League to try and get more professionalism and standards into the academy environments.
“We need to be going even further than that, though. The kids need to be inspired and we need to bring them into the environment where they are really motivated because we want to find the next Will Hughes or even Jordon Ibe who we had on loan last season.
“These are the types of players that we want to be producing. To do that, you need good facilities and over the last few months we have put a significant investment into the academy.
“It’s no good just doing that, though, we don’t want to become a club that is producing players just to sell them on, it’s not just a business, we are trying to bring players through to the first team.
“My goal over the next five years is that at least 50 per cent of our first team will have academy players in it. That’s just one player each year and we are there.”
