BURNLEY’S new academy manager Jonathan Pepper admits he is going to be a ‘pain the backside’ for club chiefs as he attempts to drive standards up over the next 12 months.

Having spent the last four-and-a-half years carrying out independent audits for the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), Pepper is well placed to know what is required as the Clarets seek to move up from a Category Three rating for their academy.

While the £10.6million Gawthorpe training ground redevelopment is going to play a major part in that, the work going on behind the scenes has to be right as well.

Pepper, a former academy coach at Nottingham Forest and academy manager at Bradford City, has spent the last year going into Category One academies, and he has plenty of examples of best practice that he is keen to implement around Turf Moor and Gawthorpe.

“I’ve come here off the back of a year going into the Category One clubs,” said Pepper. “I know what we’ve got to do here.

“I’ll keep knocking on the door saying ‘we need this that, we need that, we need to start doing this’, I’m probably going to be a bit of a pain in the backside for the next year or so until we get to those standards.

“You don’t really see the work behind the scenes but it’s a big department in terms of the academy in what we’re trying to do.”

Burnley are set for their own EPPP audit later this season as they look to move up to Category Two status initially, which would open up a better games programme for the development squad and youth team, as well as the possibility of recruiting better players.

“Going to Category Two is going to be massive in terms of the games programme and how we’re perceived in the football community,” said Pepper.

“The first team have made massive progress in terms of getting into the Premier League. For us as an academy we need to raise the levels of what we’re doing.

“On Saturday mornings we will be playing Category Two football against the likes of Leeds, Sheffield United, Wednesday, clubs like that, then on a Sunday morning we will be competing against clubs like that but also the likes of Everton, Man United and Man City, against the Category One sides, so for us it’s essential we get everything in place to make sure we can compete at that level.”

As well as improving the level of opposition, moving up categories can also help attract better players, with Pepper admitting parents are ‘romanced by facilities’.

It will also help the club develop better players, with the ultimate aim of trying to reduce the gap between development squad and first team level, but Pepper warns there will be no short-term fix.

“There is a massive gap between Category Three and Premier League football, there’s a massive gap between youth team football and Premier League football.

“It’s bridging that gap and that is why there is the intention to move to the Category Two programme so the gap and the competition levels we’re playing at isn’t such a massive one compared to the first team.

“That should lead to producing a higher quality of player. That takes time, we can’t do it overnight, there’s not a switch you can flick and start producing a conveyor belt of players, it might take four or five years before we get a steady stream of players coming through.”

The academy currently employs 21 full-time staff, but Pepper expects that number to grow as standards improve. There are currently three analysts who look at how the age group teams play and match it to data from first team level.

Pepper is aware of the dangers of giving young players too much information, but believes football is still playing catch-up in terms of talent development compared to other sports.

“You’ve got to be careful you’re not going over the top with the amount of staff that you have, but I think a lot of EPPP is coming from other sporting arenas and environments and how they try and produce Olympic athletes or elite athletes,” he said.

“It’s looking at how they do things and trying to modernise the game of football, which has been needed for a number of years.”

But enjoyment is still a key thing for young players coming through the system.

Pepper added: “You don’t want young lads at nine or 10 becoming mini-professionals, you want them to be having the love of the game, enjoying it and playing with a smile on their face. The closer they get, at 15 or 16, that becomes a bit more serious, it could be a career, but at nine or 10 you’ve got to enjoy it and feel part of the club and enjoying wearing the shirt and learning. Anyone who gets involved in the academy at Burnley we want them to have a good experience. Not everyone is going to come out the other end as a professional footballer, it’s important for us as a club they have a good experience, they’re treated well, learnt something along the way, created some memories, we want them to go away and think ‘that was a really good part of my life’, whether it ends at 10, 12 or 22, that’s what we’ve got to create.

“But essentially we want footballers out there at Turf Moor, playing in the first team, or even ahead of that in the Champions League. It would be great to have a player that comes through the academy that plays Champions League or international football.

“Just to have someone play at Turf Moor on a regular basis, I think the fans would enjoy that. Someone from this area, who has been through the system, to pull the Claret shirt on would be great for the staff involved, for the club and for the fans. They will probably give them a bit more time and have a bit more patience with someone like that.”