STUART McCall wants City’s talented teenagers to keep using the EFL Trophy as a pathway to the first team.

Finn Cousin-Dawson was the stand-out performer in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Wolves under-21s and Jorge Sikora, Kian Scales and Connor Shanks also made an impression on their manager once again.

McCall has never been a big fan of the Trophy but views it as a great opportunity for his squad’s first-year pros to continue pushing their way into his selection plans.

He said: “I don’t normally get excited about this competition. But I’m looking forward to the Oldham game, see if we can beat them and progress and keep giving the young lads more game time.

“The first thing I did (afterwards) was look at the results. We know now that when we play Oldham if we can win then we’ll hopefully progress.

“The more games they can get the better.

“We’ve got a healthy squad in terms of numbers but we’ve got lots of games coming up. Would I think twice about throwing a Finn in? No.

“I like to see the young lads progressing and these are the ideal games to do that.”

Centre half Cousin-Dawson was used in a holding midfield role – a position he had never played before. But he showed enough to suggest to McCall that it could become his permanent spot.

“I pulled him the other day and asked if he’d played there before and he hadn’t,” added the City boss.

“But we saw it in training. He’s obviously a centre half but we’d played him at right back against Doncaster.

“He’s just got an attitude that he will go and play anywhere for you. He was terrific.

“When we were in possession, he was comfortable on the ball moving it side to side. He can get a tackle in and can get round the pitch.

“Unfortunately, he got booked in the first minute and as the game wore on, he was naturally getting tired as they all were.

“(I took him off because) I didn’t want him to run the risk of a tired tackle and getting a red card because he didn’t deserve that. I thought he was outstanding.

“That might be a role in which he goes on and makes his career.”

Bryce Hosannah also made his City debut after signing on a season-long loan from Leeds last week.

The 21-year-old played the full game in his first outing in senior football as well as scoring their second penalty in the shoot-out.

McCall said: “I think he enjoyed his debut. He was everything we hoped he would be.

“Like all modern-day full backs, everyone is better going forward now than they are defending.

“Not that he was shabby in any way defensively but I think he stood out by getting forward and playing good balls and putting some crosses in.

“There was maybe a call for us to play a stronger squad with us not having a game last Saturday. But we put out a side that deserved to play and a lot of them did really well.”

McCall confirmed the hunt for another striker will go to the wire. “We’ve got eight days. We wanted two or three in and have got two, so hopefully we’ll be able to bring one more in before the window shuts.”