BURNLEY Under-23s coach Andy Farrell says he is always on the lookout for the next Dwight McNeil to emerge from the youngsters.

Farrell admits he doesn’t know when the next exciting youngster will come, but along with his coaches he is relishing developing the Clarets’ stars of the future.

Burnley held fierce rivals Blackburn Rovers to a 1-1 draw in the final group game of the Premier League Cup on Thursday afternoon at Tameside Stadium but are now set for an enforced break due to the coronavirus.

“You never know who the next one will be, to be fair, it could be any one of them,” said Farrell.

“If they get an opportunity to go up and train with the first team in the future, then something just may click.

“They could show something off and they could take a liking to them and they may end up there.

“We just have to see where we go with them now, they’ve only been with us four or five weeks so we’re getting them game time and seeing how they develop.”

Farrell’s aim is to create young footballers to progress into the Clarets first team, but if that fails, he hopes they can go elsewhere to embark on a career in professional football.

“It’s all about development, we’re trying to create players for the first team or further their career,” added Farrell.

“Chances are if they don’t make it with us then they’ll hopefully go and play professional football elsewhere. I hope it’s with us. We’re just trying to develop young professional footballers for our first team if we can.

“But if we can’t, then they’ll go on to somewhere else. Our aims are to just try and progress our younger lads who have come into the group and get them ready for next year.

“We’ll get them in amongst the older lads to see how they find it.

“They’ll play twice a week, which is a rarity for most of the boys and we’ll just see how they get on with it.”

The game was a dead rubber in terms of the group as Rovers had already qualified for the last 16 and Burnley had been eliminated, but Farrell insists it didn’t need much to get his players motivated.

“I think it’s always quite easy for the boys to get up for it with a Blackburn fixture,” Farrell added.

“A lot of the boys aren’t local, but they do know the rivalry between the two football clubs.

“I stressed before that it’s quite a big occasion to play Blackburn. Second half they came alive a bit, but I don’t think the conditions were great for the game.

“We looked to play out in the first half, and we struggled so we thought we’ll see how they get on and they did exactly the same as us. I’m more pleased about the second half. Momentum helped, getting a few toes in and winning a few second balls to get you on the front foot.

“First half it was pretty hard to get going, but I think we had more of a go at it in the second half.”