Some time ago Aston Villa academy coach Gordon Cowans was talking to me in glowing terms about the youngsters coming through the ranks at Villa Park and one player he earmarked for guaranteed success was Peter Whittingham.
Sure enough, and just as 'Sid' had predicted, Whittingham - having made his first team breakthrough towards the end of last season - has taken the Premiership by storm this term and become both a regular starter and a key member of a Villa team now starting to come good under David O'Leary.
Whittingham, who became the fourth member of the 2001 FA Youth Cup-winning team to break into the first team, following in the footsteps of Stefan Moore, Liam Ridgewell and Wayne Henderson, scored the opening goal in Villa's 5-0 rout of Wycombe on Tuesday.
And afterwards he earned high praise from manager O'Leary who knows a thing or two about nurturing and developing young talent from his days at Elland Road when he was instrumental in bringing the likes of Harry Kewell and Alan Smith through to the senior side.
O'Leary feels that Whittingham's career could follow a similar route and after the England Under 19 international had scored his first senior goal for the club in the Carling Cup victory, the Villa boss said: "Peter has done very well and I thought he was excellent again at Wycombe.
"I'd love to have the luxury of leaving him out and giving him a break. I've not got that at the moment with our resources being stretched. It's important to look after him. But I've had a good feeling about Peter, along with my assistant Roy Aitken, from the first moment we saw him. We liked him from the off.
"We had a good feeling at Leeds about Harry Kewell and Alan Smith, a good feeling that they could do it, and I've also got the same feeling about Peter, that he's good enough," enthused O'Leary who added: "I'm a great lover of bringing young players into a team.
"If they're good enough to go into the team I'm a big believer in putting them in. They won't find me being the kind of manager blocking their path if they're good enough."
All of which bodes well for another Villa youngster 'star maker' Cowans is tipping for great things in the future…Luke Moore.
Sid says: "Luke was also in the successful FA Youth Cup team and he certainly has the potential to go all the way, like his brother Stefan who has already played in the first team. It will obviously be down to David O'Leary to decide when Luke is ready, but we will be looking to push him through during the course of the season."
If Cowans' prediction about Whittingham is anything to go by, we are going to be hearing a lot about young Mr Moore II.
