Stoke City academy manager Dave Wright has stated that the club are still capable of producing top quality players from their ranks.

Despite their fantastic growth as a club in the past few years, Stoke have not quite been able to translate similar level of success to their youth team and the 2014/15 Premier League campaign was the first season in the club's history in which not even a single homegrown player started a match.

The record does not bode well for the academy but youth team chief Wright still firmly believes that he can produce players who are good enough to play for the first team.

He told the Stoke Sentinel: "Our job is to produce Premier League players and, the way the first team is going, perhaps even produce players for European football. It is important we give ourselves the best chance of doing that.

"We are looking to improve the under-21s group and bring through players who can work their way into Mark Hughes's thoughts.

"The players who are in Glyn Hodges's (under-21s) group at the moment need support and help and we think some good recruitment will improve the standard, improve the group and bridge the gap to the senior side."