Under-21s quartet Harvey Griffiths, Alfie Pond, Tyler Roberts and Oliver Tipton have been recalled from their season-long loan spells following the turn of the year.
The youngsters spent the first half of the 2023/24 season embarking on their maiden EFL loans away from Molineux.
Griffiths, 20, made three appearances in all competitions during his time with Walsall while Alfie Pond appeared nine times for League Two leaders Stockport County.
Defender Oliver Tipton returns to Compton Park having played seven times for Notts County and Tyler Roberts is back following 10 League Two appearances and 15 in all competitions for Doncaster Rovers.
Pathways manager, Steve Davis, has provided an assessment of the four loans and said: “It’s been mixed for them all and they’ve all had different experiences of the clubs they’ve been at - whether that’s the way they’re run, the position they’re in the league, how the players around them have dealt with that and the environment that they’ve set.
“You learn as a development player just how crucial it is, how reliable you have to be and how much pressure there is in that environment.
“In terms of the loans themselves, they’ve probably not all had the game time as they would’ve envisaged at the time, but they learn other things. They learn about the dressing room, the training ground and how professional players approach things. Lots of learning is done in that short space of time.”
Davis has added that loan regulations mean Griffiths and Pond are unable to be loaned back into the EFL, but has explained how each individual will be treated differently and for their specific needs when it comes to deciding on the next steps for the second half of the campaign.
“They’re all different and we’ll treat them all individually. For Harvey (Griffiths) and Pondy (Alfie Pond), they can’t be loaned back out because they’ve played for the first-team and been on loan, so that counts as two loans and regulations stipulate that they can’t go out, but Tippo (Oliver Tipton) and Tinks (Tyler Roberts) can go back out.
“We can loan lower so we can look for options in the National League if we think that’s the right thing to do. It might be that we think they’ll benefit more playing 21s football, being the best player in the 21s and then seeing where that takes them for the summer. They all have different needs and we’ll make different decisions on them.”
