City boss Danny Cowley is pleased with the capture of young midfielder, Alex Bradley, the former West Brom product moved to Sincil Bank this week and Danny said that his infectious attitude and desire to work during a trial spell with the club in pre-season paved the way for the move to Sincil Bank.
“Alex has come in pre-season and done really, really well. He’s got an infectious attitude and work ethic, he’s obviously a really young player and was only just a young professional at West Brom.
“For us it wasn’t a position in which we were looking to add, but he’s come in and he’s really affected us and I think the plan for him now is to create a pathway, like we do for all of our young players but he’s certainly one in the future who could do really well for us.”
The midfielder, who has represented Finland across youth levels, has been training with the City squad since they returned for pre-season and Danny said it’s been important for the youngster to have got in a full pre season with his new squad.
“It’s been great, sometimes you just want to suck it and see and you want players to come in, and you certainly learn more about the players after working with them than you can watching them play for another team or watching them play on video footage you might have. So that always helps.”
The move for Alex is one which signposts towards a brighter future of development for youngsters at the Football club, and it’s an area which the City boss says is progressing well at the club after a difficult few years for the Academy at Sincil Bank.
“Certainly, if he’d come through our Academy he’s someone who we would have been proud to have developed, not someone of his ability but also of his attitude and work ethic.
He enjoyed a positive loan spell at Havant and Waterlooville in the National League last year at the beginning of last season and then finished at the back end of the season at Burton in League One.
“For us, with our Academy we’re working really hard to develop our own and eventually that’s where we want to be and we’ve started to do that with Ellis Chapman and Jordan Adebayo-Smith but there is a gap for us because of where the club has come from and not having had the finances or the protection over our players when we were in the National League, so there is a gap.
Danny continued: “What we’re trying to do is bring one or two young ones in that we think we can develop and what we have to do for Alex is to try to give him the right training in the right environment with the right culture and find him a pathway to play first team games and that’s what we plan to do. He’s an exciting player and certainly and exciting project for us.
“The plan in the short term is to get him out on loan and get him playing some games, because he’s still very young and we need to expose him to as much first team football so that he can develop in the way that we think he’s capable of, but we’re certainly happy to have him with us.”
The Imps are in pre-season at home to Sky Bet Championship side Stoke City this evening. Click HERE to purchase tickets.
