Aston Villa boss Dean Smith insists he has big plans for Louie Barry.

Smith, however, won't call up the striker until he feels he's ready.

He said, "I'll draft him in when I think he's ready. We have a lot of the younger players training with us regularly.

"Age-teamed football is obviously very different to open-age football. The FA Youth Cup, we've got a great young crop, and our lads are into the quarter-finals now (vs Newcastle on April 27) and deservedly so.

"We're doing well and our academy is thriving again which is what we wanted and Louie Barry's one of a few with Carney and Aaron Ramsey (Ramsey). We've got JJ (Jacob Ramsey) in our team at the moment; Kaine Kesler.

"We've got a lot of players who are progressing but the Premier League is a massive jump and they have to be showing that when they're training with our first-team group as well."

Smith added: "Louie's developing really well. He scored a hat-trick against Burton in the FA Youth Cup last week which I witnessed.

"As I've said, we've got an elite group that have been training with us that have been doing well in their age group, but what they have to do is to make sure that when they come with the first team that they're at the top of their game because that's where they will get picked to be in the squad and be involved in our squad... when they've shown that they can compete at first-team level as well."