Walsall Academy Manager Miguel Llera is pleased to see Sam Perry making his mark in the first team.
Llera worked with Perry last season and helped oversee his development into a first team player.
Perry has impressed during his three appearances so far much to the delight of Llera who always believed the 19-year-old was capable and praised Head Coach Brian Dutton for giving him an opportunity.
“I spoke with the first team manager and he’s really pleased with Sam,” Llera said.
“I think he’s doing really well. It’s a pity he didn’t get the chance before but looking at the positive thing, a lot of credit to Brian, he’s really happy with him and his individual performance.
“I didn’t have any doubt about his qualities as a player, like Joe Willis too, hopefully Joe is back to fitness after his injury. I’m sure he’ll be an important player for the club.
“In regards to Sam, I’m really pleased for him. I know what he’s capable of and I think that he needs to keep having minutes, working hard to get minutes, perform consistently and feeling comfortable playing in a professional environment.”
Meanwhile, Walsall Under 18s suffered defeats in their last two games, losing 7-1 to Huddersfield Town in the EFL Youth Alliance Cup before a 4-1 loss to Bolton Wanderers on Saturday 6th March.
It’s been a difficult period for Llera’s side as they’ve been unable to field their strongest team in a number of games but he saw more signs of encouragement against Bolton and feels that now fitness levels are improving, positive results will follow.
“With everything that has been happening with self-isolation in the last month, the scholars played just their second game since December but we’ve seen some fitness improvements from them during March,” he explained.
“In regards to the game against Huddersfield Town, we were pretty poor in fitness levels but we saw some improvements against Bolton, it was just silly mistakes and individual mistakes. I’m pretty sure in the next couple of weeks we will start to win games again because they are getting fitter.
“My priority at the moment is the shape and getting everybody fitter without getting injuries. As soon as they get fitter, they will start to win games and perform better.”