Coventry City manager Tony Mowbray has said that he is pleased to have signed Jordan Ponticelli from the Strachan Foundation.
“From my perspective he’s not a player I was aware of but our Academy manager Richard Stevens highlighted him to me and I had a conversation with the lad at the Under-21 game the other day and just talked to him about career path lines really,” said Mowbray to the Coventry Telegraph.
“It’s OK being wanted by the Premier League but it will be a good few years before he potentially surfaces there.
“We have a relatively high profile one ourselves who looks as though he’s going to take a different route down the road but they have all got choices to make and we all live or die by the choices we make.
“Every club has technical scouts who pick up every snippet in every newspaper if someone is doing particularly well and then someone goes and watches him. If you are talented enough and break into a team, as we found with James Maddison when the scouting list of top Premier League clubs coming to watch our matches, week in and week out, was huge.
“So I had a ten minute chat with this boy and let’s see how he does. It’s another one for the future.
“It’s nice to have a local lad join his local club, and that’s another positive, but it’s only a story if the talent pushes him forward, otherwise we may never talk about this kid again. He has to push on and with his position, he has to score some goals, catch the eye and he has to progress which will all come down to his performance level.
“That will dictate whether he will start in the Under-18s and breaks into the Under-21s, as Bassala had begun to do. His performance level with the 18s will dictate how quickly he moves through the ranks.”
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