Leicester City set Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall pathway for talented teenage midfielder

Sammy Braybrooke could take the same route as Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall as Leicester City look to prepare the midfielder for the first team.

Braybrooke is one of the most promising talents in City’s academy, and has played an integral role for the Under-23s this season as well as captaining the Under-18s in their run to the FA Youth Cup quarter-finals. That has earned him first-team recognition, and the 18-year-old was included in Brendan Rodgers’ squad for both legs of the Europa Conference League quarter-final against PSV Eindhoven.

That experience was to help Braybrooke get used to a first-team environment as the club set out a pathway for him. The next step is a loan spell, says Rodgers, who was at Seagrave to watch Braybrooke and the Under-23s as they lost their penultimate Premier League 2 fixture 4-0 to Liverpool on Monday night.

Dewsbury-Hall has proven that loans are effective for preparing a player for the Premier League, having impressed at Blackpool and Luton before his breakthrough City campaign this term. He did not get his chance in the EFL until he was 21 though, and Rodgers suggests Braybrooke is ready to go out on loan at 18.

“He probably needs experience of playing some league football,” Rodgers said when asked what the next step would be for Braybrooke. “At the moment he’s a player that’s progressing very, very well. He’s captain of England Under-18s, he’s got a wonderful football brain, he passes the ball well, can play through the lines really well.

“We brought him to PSV to give him that big-game experience, so he could be around it. But I think over the short and medium term, he will continue to play through to the end of the season, and then hopefully there’ll be a loan spell for him, similar to