One thing I’ve started to enjoy with the younger players is putting something tangible in front of them. Not just you’ll get opportunities or keep working and your time will come, because, honestly, what does any of that actually mean? If I’m asking a nineteen or twenty-year-old to be patient while somebody more experienced starts ahead of him, then I think he deserves to know what changes that situation. So we’ve started building targets into some of those conversations, alongside the usual contract bonuses. Play this many games. Reach this level. Score this many goals. Give me a reason why, when I sit down to pick the team next year, I cannot leave you out.

Kaleb Spielman was probably the clearest example. We spoke before the season and I gave him ten goals. Get me ten this year and you’ve earned the right to come back next season expecting to start, rather than simply hoping for more minutes. It wasn’t a promise that I’d write his name on the team sheet thirty times regardless of form, obviously, but it was a commitment from me as well as him. Reach the target and my perception of where you sit in this squad has to change.

Bueno, apparently I should have made it fifteen.

Eight appearances, seven goals. I knew Kaleb would give us running and I knew there were certain versions of the front three where that would be incredibly useful, but I didn’t expect him to attack the target quite this quickly. There’s something I really like about that. He’s not waiting for Joel, Franco, Arney or Jamir to disappear before deciding this is his opportunity. Every appearance is an argument for the next one.

The bonuses help with this too, particularly with young players. I don’t mind contracts rewarding appearances, goals or achievements because I want progression to have something concrete attached to it. Development can become this vague thing where everybody agrees a player has “potential” for three years without ever deciding when that potential has actually become production. Targets force the conversation to move on.

Kaleb still needs three goals, of course. I’m not giving him the prize after seven.

But I suspect he’s going to make me honour that conversation considerably earlier than I expected.