'Forget Southampton, Bournemouth and Brighton Academies. My focus is Portsmouth - and we're making strides': New Blues youth coach Zesh Rehman

The former Fulham and Bradford defender took over from Liam Daish as Pompey Academy’s lead professional development phase coach in June.

He heads a new-look set-up which includes former Aston Villa and Derby youth coach Sam Hudson as his assistant, while James Barlow was appointed head of coaching in February.

Pompey’s Academy and its ongoing financing has come under scrutiny in recent times, receiving criticism from Daish, while Tornante’s Andy Redman conceded it hadn’t ‘progressed as much as we would have liked’.

Nonetheless, Rehman has been encouraged by early progress – and is adamant improvements are already visible.

He told The News: ‘To be honest, I don’t really know too much about the inner workings of the other academies.

‘I just have tunnel vision of what is happening here, trying to get our own house in order and making this the best it can possibly be before you compare.

‘I talk to the players about it’s you versus yourself, don’t look sideways to compare. That’s my outlook.

‘I think about our Academy versus where it was a month ago, six weeks ago, a year ago, that’s my conversation with the lads.

‘Are we better now than where we were in pre-season? I would say so. So at the end of the season, can we be better than we were in December?

‘We now have clear processes for the players, we have raised the standards on and off the pitch, there are good expectations, there’s alignment between roles and responsibilities of the analysts and psychologists.

‘There’s the connection with the first-team in terms of who Danny and Nicky need from us, so we’ll speak the night before, planning-wise it’s who you need and when you need them.

‘So are we better than we were week one? 100 per cent. And there’s more and more, but I don’t want to bore you with that.

‘It doesn’t feel like a Category 3 Academy. In terms of our preparation and some of the video analysis and level of detail we’re going into, it feels better than that, it feels bigger than that.’

Still a few months into the job, Rehman continues to assess the Academy talent at his disposal.

Adam Payce appeared as a second-half substitute in last month’s Papa John’s Trophy encounter at Crawley.

While the likes of Josh Dockerill, Harvey Laidlaw and Malachi Osei-Owusu have between them been given bench duty in the Carabao Cup and Papa John’s Trophy this season.

He added: ‘It remains early days, I’m still getting to know the players’ identity, their strengths, their weaknesses, how they are in different games, different weathers, different situations.

‘The fact is we’ve had Adam Payce already play for the first-team this season. These are guys that Danny and Nicky have looked at and want involved with them.

‘There will be late developers, people in this group who are maybe struggling a little now but will flourish in six months' time, so it’s very hard to say how good they are.

‘It’s our job to improve them and get them to that next level, whatever that is for them.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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