James Collins says that the club's young guns have the chance to challenge those ahead of them

James Collins says that young forward Callum Saunders will always catch the eye with his goals and movement, but that he isn’t the only one of the club’s new first year professionals to look out for. Collins knows the group of young professional better than most after helping nurture their development through the Academy.

Collins is excited by the introduction of six new first-year professionals and seven if you include the talented George Cooper, who has signed a year earlier due to his progress.

Collins told the club’s official web-site: “The young lads here know that they will get a chance. That is what we offer here. They know that they won’t end up in the Under-21s and no-one bothers about them.

“Our Under-21s is a chance for them to show what they can do. If they can do well then the next step is the first team squad. We will be constantly watching them, in training and in those games.

“Callum is always going to capture the imagination because he is a goal scorer. His dad was a very successful footballer as well, so that adds to that as well. Callum has a talent for scoring goals and that is why people talk about him but he isn’t the only one in that group.

“They are all good lads, with a great attitude and I’m sure some of them will come through to play for the first-team. It is up to them because they know that if they do well here, they will get their opportunities because Steve (Davis) has never been afraid to play them.

He added: “Having five or six coming through together will only help them. They have grown up together and they won’t let anybody get carried away. It will be good coming from them rather than us.”