Joe Ledley said he always knew Nottingham Forest player would be a star after playing him at 18 years old

Add as preferred source on Google

The Nottingham Forest academy is producing plenty of quality at the moment, but one who has already broken through showed signs of promise when coming up against Joe Ledley.

The challenge for young players is always the step up from academy level to senior football, with the most recent to make the leap being Zach Abbott in his FA Cup semi-final start.

There’s plenty to be excited about in the Forest academy right now, though, as under Warren Joyce’s stewardship, Forest won the Premier League International Cup, a prestigious youth tournament.

Flashback to 2016, however, and there was one gem coming through the ranks that caught the eye of Crystal Palace regular Ledley in a youth game.

Ryan Yates showed his potential in a clash with Joe Ledley

Abbott may reach his level, but Ryan Yates has been the jewel of the Forest academy for some time now, with over 200 appearances in the first team.

Nuno Espírito Santo values Yates in his squad despite not necessarily starting him every week, but his value to the club as a whole dates much further back than the Forest manager.

In a piece for The Athletic, former Reds academy scout Terry Bourne spoke of Yates’ time in the youth set up, including a memorable clash with Ledley in an under-21s match.

Bourne said: “He [Yates] went to Barrow on loan (joining the then non-League side in August 2016 at age 18), under Paul Cox, basically because Paul had come to watch a Forest Under-21s game against Crystal Palace.

“Joe Ledley had been out for a year with injury and it was his first 45 minutes back… Yatesy just ran around the City Ground and kicked Joe whenever he got on the ball.

“I can remember Joe coming off the pitch and asking me, ‘Who is your No 8?’. I thought he was going to moan. But what he actually said was, ‘He has got a right chance, he has.’”

For Bourne, this was just another example of Yates’ potential, having scouted the Forest captain over a decade before this.

Terry Bourne on first scouting Ryan Yates for Nottingham Forest

Morgan Gibbs-White admitted he would hate to face Yates given the battling nature of the 27-year-old, but it was back when he was playing in an under-8s team that Bourne first spotted his potential.

He said: “He [Yates] had that never-say-die attitude even when he was seven or eight. He would run through a brick wall. He was talented. He could strike a ball very cleanly and powerfully.

“I remember watching him in one under-eights game, he hit a shot that hammered against the bar and bounced back.

“Yatesy threw himself in to head the rebound, which he did, but he went through absolutely everything in his way to get there… defenders, the goalkeeper… he even managed to knock the goal over.

“The actual goal fell over, with people rolling around in the back of the net. The keeper was lying on the ground in tears.”

Opposition fans often get frustrated with Yates for his tough-tackling displays, but it seems that grit has been a part of his game since the very beginning.