The 2 Exeter City players that could be the next Ollie Watkins after Euro 2024 heroics | OneFootball

Exeter City's wonderful academy has a few more exciting players in the pipeline

When Ollie Watkins scored that goal in Dortmund to send England into the Euro 2024 final, the jubilation across England was a truly-wonderful thing to behold.

But in a small area of south-east Devon, the joy was doubled with pride at the local lad doing it on the biggest stage.

The humble kid from Newton Abbot had just scored a 90th-minute winner to make everyone believe football was, finally, coming home.

Of course, it wasn’t to be as Spain defeated Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions 2-1 in his final game in charge to extend the wait into a sixth decade.

But as the dust settles on the action in Germany, the pride in the best Exeter City academy graduate for a century remains.

Ollie Watkins’ journey from non-league to Premier League

Watkins first played for City’s kids in 2004, spending a decade at the Cliff Hill before graduating to the first team and making his debut in the final match of the 2013/14 season.

A fruitful loan at Weston-Super-Mare followed before he grew into the Grecians’ first team and earned a £1.8m move to Brentford in July 2017.

Three years later, Aston Villa came calling with a £28m offer rising to £33m with add-ons and the Grecians pocketed a further £4m from that deal with an extra £750,000 in performance-related bonuses due to a sell-on clause.

It was a game-changing sum for the Grecians and the revamped Cliff Hill training ground is largely thanks to Watkins’ progression.

Premier League players don’t grow on trees, and it takes a huge amount of work to take a kid who was initially rejected by the academy at nine-years-old into one well worthy of a Euros final appearance on the back of a 27-goal season.

The work never stops at Exeter City and the hunt is always on for the next Ollie Watkins, the next academy player to hit the big time.

So, are there any players in the current squad who could challenge Watkins' success? You know what, there might just be. Step forward, Sonny Cox.

The 19-year-old striker is a different style of player to the skillful, pacy Watkins, but he’s got an eye for goal few possess at such a young age. A certified fox in the box.

His goal-scoring record is modest so far, but he’s taken time to fill out and adapt to men’s football.

A loan at Yeovil in the National League South in the 2023/24 season helped him build confidence, and he returned to first-team action with a bang, scoring three goals in the seven games following Boxing Day - with all of those being vital winners.

He’s played a lot of minutes, 1,625 last season, and made 32 appearances in the league, the most of any striker his age in the whole EFL.

Only Charlton’s Daniel Kanu (1,844) and Freddie Draper (1,642) of Walsall, on loan from Lincoln, played more minutes across the 72 clubs of all the centre forwards who started the season aged 18 or younger.

In 2021, then-City boss Matt Taylor described him as ‘One of the most in demand players at all levels at any age throughout the country,’ before he signed a pro deal with the Grecians.

In the past, in-demand academy graduates would have been off as soon as they turned 16, like Ethan Ampadu and Jay Stansfield, but he’s made the bold choice to follow in Watkins' footsteps and cut his teeth in men’s football.

It’s commendable, and hopefully it pays off for both him and City.

There’s a long way to go in Cox’s development, but Watkins was a year older and played fewer minutes in his breakthrough season at City in 2015/16, though he did score three more goals from a wide position and grabbed two more assists than Cox did.

Jake Richards has the potential to go to the top

Another of the brightest prospects in City’s ranks is 16-year-old midfielder Jake Richards. He made his debut for the club on his last birthday, picking up a fetching yellow card from the referee to remember the occasion by.

He looks both combative and creative and has made nine senior appearances for City already. He’s also got two assists to his name in just 286 minutes of action.

City boss Caldwell is a big fan, and he’s admitted the club keep increasing the contract on offer that they hope he will sign when he turns 17 on August 8th this year.

The Grecians are clearly desperate that he, like Cox, commits his future to the club by signing that first pro deal.

"We have offered him two or three [contracts] now as he keeps doing so well," Caldwell said, via DevonLive. "We are putting different contract offers to him and when he is 17 he can sign that contract and extend his stay at the club.

"He has been a huge success this year. There aren’t many 16-year-olds that play anywhere in football, never mind in League One. So, for him to have started so many games in League One shows the talent and potential he has, so hopefully when that contract gets put in front of him, he signs it and stays here."

While Richards is a much different player to Watkins in style, physique and position, there’s clearly admiration for his current ability and high hopes for what he could become.

City’s other schoolboy players like Ampadu and Ben Chrisene have moved on to bigger things, and it feels like Richards is destined for the top flight and, with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work, maybe even international football too.