Bournemouth youth chief Alan Connell is full of praise for summer signing Ben Greenwood.
Defender Greenwood, 17, has been catapulted from the youth ranks of non-league Fleet Spurs to the Cherries' academy in just a matter of months.
Connell told afcb.co.uk: When we were planning ahead last season, we were looking at the position of left-back and Carl Robson, head of our academy recruitment, brought him to our attention.
He has played for England schoolboys which is a good level for players outside of the academy system. He also had an eight-week trial at Chelsea and was unfortunate not to get offered something there.
We thought he would be well worth a look and, straightaway, we were pleasantly surprised.
He has never had any coaching at academy level but he has looked the part from day one. With the work we thought we could put into him, we felt he would improve and we feel he has.
He trained with the first team during the second week of pre-season and coped fine with that as well.
To have gone from playing schools football to to training with our first team in the space of a few months is a pretty remarkable journey."
