Steve Chettle has revealed Southampton striker Che Adams wasn't a finished article as a youngster.
Adams', meteoric rise to the Premier League started in an unorthodox manner.
The Leicester native joined Coventry City's academy at the age of seven and was released at fourteen.
Spells at non-league clubs St. Andrews and Oadby Town followed before Adams took up a scholarship at Ilkeston Town, where Chettle was in charge of the club's academy.
It was at the Northern Premier League club where Adams blossomed from raw talent to battle-hardened youth, eventually joining Southampton this past summer after successful spells at Sheffield United and Birmingham City.
And Nottingham Forest legend Chettle says Ilkeston worked hard at nurturing Adam's precocious and unrefined potential.
"The potential was always there but it was never going to be the finished article," Chettle, now manager of Basford United, told tribalfootballl.com.
"Che came in at 16 as a first-year scholar at Ilkeston who'd been released by Coventry, been at Leicester and played local grassroots football. And the manager at the time, Kevin Wilson, went to watch this kid who he'd heard about, who was just a raw diamond and a bit of a maverick and some of these kids don't fit into academy programs.
"So we had to nurture the talent that Che had, let him make mistakes, but also let him go and do what he was really good at and he's done really well from going to Sheffield United onto Birmingham and obviously gracing the Premier League which is fantastic, especially for our CV which shows we can nurse them and get them to the highest level."
Adams failed to score in six Premier League starts before being dropped for Saints' loss to Tottenham on Saturday.
Having lined-up as a striker alongside Danny Ings and as a targetman alongside two wingers, Chettle thinks Adams performs best as an "out and out" striker.
"I think he will be a striker, whether he is a nine or he is playing off a striker, he is an out and out goalscorer.
"The first thing he does is look to receive the ball, looks to be positive and go forward, and so within somebody's structure he should be a striker."
