Leicester City have always produced talented players from their academy.
Gary Lineker is the most notable example whilst Harvey Barnes, Ben Chilwell and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall are more recent cases.
Flying that flag at the moment is Kasey McAteer, who was subjected to late transfer interest from Sunderland this week.
Sunderland lodged a £10m bid to sign McAteer, but Leicester decided to retain his signature and keep him part of Ruud van Nistelrooy’s squad.
Though, they did opt to sanction the loan of Will Alves and he’s now joined Cardiff City on a six-month loan deal.
With that said, former Leicester player Iwan Roberts has come out and tipped Alves to have a bright future at the club and has likened him to Harvey Barnes.
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Iwan Roberts likens Will Alves to Harvey Barnes
Speaking on the Feast of Football podcast, Iwan Roberts revealed that Leicester coaches think Will Alves could be the next Harvey Barnes.
“He has bags of potential [and a] fantastic attitude – a really good, honest, humble lad,” Roberts explained.
“I spoke to [former defender] Gerry Taggart, who has worked with him in the Leicester academy.
“Leicester rated him really highly. They thought he is a similar type of player to Harvey Barnes – plays in the wide area, loads of pace, quite direct, can score a goal and create.
“But he had a really bad knee injury a couple of years ago. He hasn’t played many games for Leicester and that’s the reason why.”
Ruud van Nistelrooy big fan of Alves
Ruud van Nistelrooy has publically spoken about Alves on a number of occasions and is a real fan of his qualities.
“What he has is speed, good feet, he can create something, powerful,” Van Nistelrooy said.
“It’s what we need on the wings, players who can take on one-v-ones, get balls into the opponent’s box and get past people to create chances for us.
“Will is capable of that. Of course, he’s very young and needs to keep working like he’s doing now.”
Van Nistelrooy and club chiefs will certainly be keeping a close eye on how he progresses at Cardiff, who are looking to push up and away from the relegation zone in the Championship.