Fulham under 23s head coach Steve Wigley is revelling in his side’s success and revealed that academy graduate Fabio Carvalho was the first to message him with congratulations after they won the title and promotion with five games to go.
Wigley, who has overseen an outstanding season after being promoted to take over the under 23 team after winning back-to-back titles with Fulham’s under 23s, told the Sun that he takes particular delight from the development of the club’s precocious young talents as people.
“I see most of the U23s are down there and they stay the full game and go and watch the first team. Nothing makes me feel better than to be standing on one side of the pitch Saturday morning at 11.30am and seeing a group of players watching the boys who are younger than them.
The first person to text us congratulations on that Friday night was Fabio. He was the first one when my phone went, which is great. That says a lot about the people in the building and the togetherness of the group.”
Silva also reserved special praise for first team boss Marco Silva for building a culture that included Fulham’s future stars when he took over at Craven Cottage in the summer.
“I am not somebody that does this too often. You won’t see many newspaper articles that I’ve done. It’s not just my achievement, it’s a collective of people who have worked together for a while. We’ve been really well supported by the club and the manager in my time here and Marco has set a culture.
The young players that train with him every day like Jay Stansfield and Tyrese Francois if they’re not in the squad on the Saturday they will play with the U23s. That set a real culture amongst the group and sometimes senior players will come down and play as well and that’s quite unusual in U23s football.”
Wigley, widely regarded as one of the best youth coaches in the English game, heaped praise on the Khan family for their consistent investment in Fulham’s academy.
“The training ground is not the most expensive. Clubs have got bigger facilities, we’re very much in a tight area but it’s got a fantastic feel to it. Every time I come through the gate in the morning, I like to have a walk before training starts. I walk around the place and it’s got a real feel to it and not all football clubs are like that.
We’ve been really lucky that we’ve been supported by a fantastic ownership group in Shahid Khan and his son Tony. The club has gone up and come down but whenever we’ve come back down, that’s never affected the academy and that is rare because it’s the first thing that normally suffers.
There has been backing if we’ve wanted to go and purchase a player. You go add a Moussa Dembele or a Stansfield then you have Fabio Carvalho who has been here since he was 12. We are competing with big clubs on our doorstep with resources and deep pockets and they certainly like to target our players. We’ve got to do our best to keep them.”
Wigley tipped sixteen year-old midfielder Luke Harris, who has been starring in his first season with the under 23s, to be the next big talent to break through into Fulham’s senior side.
“You’ll be hearing about Luke for a long time. I don’t want to put that pressure on him, he doesn’t need me to big him up. His hat-trick was fantastic. They weren’t the prettiest goals. He’s one of many to contribute this season and when you score goals, you get the headlines particularly when you’re only 16. Luke and the others just love playing football and that’s the real enjoyment for me.”
