“Lee was a smashing boy to have around the place. He’s been around the first team squad for a long time and just failed to make that breakthrough as a first team starter,” said Pearce.
Adding of the 21-year-old: “We just felt that the stage he’s at at the moment it would be more beneficial for him to go out and play some first team football somewhere.
“The move to Norwich on his behalf is a great move and the finance the Club received for him was spot-on for us.
“Lee needs to play football and with the likelihood of that being our reserve team it would have been disappointing for someone like him.”
And Croft’s departure now gives Pearce the chance to look closer at some of the younger players recently recruited to Carrington.
He said: “I also feel that it gives the players that have come up from the Academy a chance to push on and force my hand.
“New influxes of players do come in from Platt Lane and they need to be given their chance as well.”
And with the senior Blues being in action over in China this weekend, Frankie Bunn takes many of those younger players from the Academy to Hyde on Saturday as City reserves take on Hyde United, kick off 3pm.
