OXFORD United are poised to expand their recruitment system in a move to ensure they stop missing out on the county’s youngest talents.

From next month they will be running pre-academy coaching sessions for boys aged six to eight.

Up to this point the youngest players in United’s system were at under nine level, meaning other clubs in the region were able to recruit promising talents across Oxfordshire.

It is a long-term move which U’s chairman Darryl Eales believes will level the playing field.

He said: “It will hopefully benefit the club in 15 years’ time.

“Within a stone’s throw of the ground is Blackbird Leys and we don’t dominate it in terms of player recruitment.

“We need to put that right and that is a big priority for the club.”

The U’s have made big strides over the last five years to improve the pathway which brings the best young footballers through into the first team set-up.

Miles Welch-Hayes became the latest youth team graduate to make his senior debut, starting the 2-0 defeat at Fleetwood Town on Wednesday night.

He follows in the footsteps of players such as Sam Long, Josh Ashby and Kidlington’s Callum O’Dowda, who was bought by Bristol City this summer in a move worth up to £1.6m.

As part of the new system, four scouts are being hired to scour Oxfordshire’s touchlines and identify players with talent.

Kieran Hayes, who will be heading the pre-academy programme, said: “Even at that age you can see potential, although we will continue to recruit at all ages because obviously some develop faster than others.

“They will come in, train with our professional coaches and play small-sided games, with the aim of progressing into the older age groups when they turn nine.

“We identified a while back we needed to do this because other clubs in the higher leagues already run similar schemes and boys were leaving the county to play junior football.

“When that happens it is hard to get them back when they are a little older so we want to offer something that is much more local for parents.

“There won’t be any pressure on those players at that age and who knows, in a few years time we could be seeing even more local boys coming through into the first team.”

Richard Blackmore, United’s youth development manager, said: “For the last few years we haven’t really been able to watch the amount of local football that we would have liked.

“People have been doing it for us, but we want it to be more professional and slightly more formal.

“It won’t change things overnight and is going to take a little while before we start to see the results.

“But it is definitely the right thing to do and the long-term benefits for the football club will be fantastic.”