Jack Rodwell - young English talent NOT to sign for City

[franksinatra]

It is not just young english players it is young players in general. This might be hard to accept but our record of late of giving young players a chance or developing them is appalling.

Liverpool have brought through sterling, flanaghan, arsenal, wilshere, gibbs and will be playing nineteen year old chambers next year. United cleverley, welbeck, Everton barclay, stones. We have produced absolutely nothing.

While everyone is rejoicing at the possible signing of Mangala, Nastasic who suffered a loss of form and injuries will now be fourth choice. Rekik who is twenty years old in december, has represented his country and in the provisional squad 30 man squad will now be fifth choice. How are we developing him?

Rodwell has now gone, the last academy graduate Richards is the next to leave. It may be an inevitable consequence of being successful but lets not get sensitive when the blatantly obvious is pointed out. Our development of players has been appalling

Also to those who keep pointing out Zaha, like it or not young players have come through and been given opportunities at Old Trafford.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

It is no lets not get sensitive when the blatantly obvious is pointed out

Via misleading headlines and disingenuously worded articles?

 

[chesterguy]

Its completely wrong to say that our development of players is appalling

When we were taken over we were producing players good enough for a mid-table team but since the takeover the standards have risen so high but it takes time to find young players that we can develop into close to world class players that we now need for the first team

How many young English players at Arsenal Liverpool United are good enough to replace our existing first team players I would suggest none

If we are still having this discussion in 10 years time then I would suggest that the Academy will have failed but surely we have to give them time to develop the sort of quality player that is now required. However I would say that I dont care where any City player comes from its about the quality of course it would be great if they were English players but it is not City's responsible to produce players to play for England

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Sorry but I don't get that bit, where did we say we'll introduce young players before they're actually good enough?

And for everyone getting their panties in a twist over this thread try reading the actual article rather than the headline. In fact try a little game called spot the quote, believe me you'll struggle.
Sly ran a similar one where the caption is "Rodwell glad to be out of City" and the headline is "Premier League: Sunderland's Jack Rodwell glad Manchester City career is over". Nowhere in the article does he say any such thing. Media are scum, get over it.

I read the whole article Cin and I wasn't taken in by the headline. However, the priority for Roswell and his people was to get across the message that he wasn't injury prone. Inevitably, this line from the Rodwell's would give the media an open goal to have a pop at us. No surprise there then!

No we won't introduce young English players if they are not good enough and article's like the Mirror push this back further. As a Club, I am afraid we could do better than:
(A) not produce a single homegrown English Ayer in the last 5 years.
(B) Sell our best young prospect of the last decade - Daniel Sturridge - who claims he wanted to leave due to lack of first team opportunies.
(C) Replace Jack Rodwell (who I agree was ready for a move) with Bruno Zuc.

I am loving the trophies and being Champions but anyone taken in by the "holistic" press release needs to go back to school. The new Academy looks great but the current best youth production line in Europe, at Feyenord,barely have two coins to scratch together.

Sorry, the 2nd part of my post wasn't aimed at you.
You are very wrong about Danny Sturridge though, he was greedy and was swayed by Chelsea waving a big fat contract at him. As pointed out earlier by someone else he claimed he wanted game time and to play with the best players. At the time Chelsea had the likes of Drogba and Anelka to get past, I wonder how much he leaned on the bench?

Ok Colin I agree that Sturridge was greedy and have let him know about when he return to the Etihad. It is a shame because I feel Sturridge would be ideal for our squad now.

Certain things are beyond our control but we don't seem to attract the right types of young English players (e.g. Mappen Walters or whatever he is called).

Hopefully the Adademy will help to change things for the better!

 

[franksinatra]

It is no lets not get sensitive when the blatantly obvious is pointed out

Via misleading headlines and disingenuously worded articles?

Im more interested in the wider context of youth development at City which is more relevant to me than the writing of a spotty teenager on a paper destined for tomorrows newspaper wrappings.

You are correct though a newspaper has written a disingenuous headline in relation to the article. I apologise for not confirming this but my understanding was this phenomena was widely known.

Do you have any views on youth development which was the basis of ninety percent of my post?

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Do you have any views on youth development which was the basis of ninety percent of my post?

Yes.

I think there's room for improvement, which we'll see in the next few years.

Hope that helps.

 

[ancoats]

if your better than yaya or silva or hart or zabba then you will play even if your 19 you will play
looking at the bench last season rodwell was never ready always had a injury and was he really fighting for a place????? the EDS there is talent but nothing standing out

but if your not better then you must fight for a place show willing but in the end jack your not a top 4 player and your level of fitness is what lets you down at manchester city you must put it in
week in week out not just 1 game you have to start for 20 games and rip up tree's

if i was 16 I would jump at the chance to sign for man city just like 10 years ago I will have jump to sign for united its what the best on offer at the time and you must be mad if you looked at the Etihad campus and turn it down

 

[Patientman63]

if your better than yaya or silva or hart or zabba then you will play even if your 19 you will play
looking at the bench last season rodwell was never ready always had a injury and was he really fighting for a place????? the EDS there is talent but nothing standing out

but if your not better then you must fight for a place show willing but in the end jack your not a top 4 player and your level of fitness is what lets you down at manchester city you must put it in
week in week out not just 1 game you have to start for 20 games and rip up tree's

if i was 16 I would jump at the chance to sign for man city just like 10 years ago I will have jump to sign for united its what the best on offer at the time and you must be mad if you looked at the Etihad campus and turn it down

I have it on very good authority (someone on the physio staff at City) that Rodwell WAS available for most games last season, his injury occurrence was low. He just wasn't good enough to break into the team, and when you consider, as an attacking midfielder, who he has to get past to get in the team , its hardly surprising he didn't. And i think that's the jist of his interview. If you are a young player (English or otherwise!) you are going to have to be at the very top of your game to break into the starting line up. He is saying to young players, get some playing time in, build your experience, before considering a team of the strength of City. And to me that's a fair comment.

 

[franksinatra]

if your better than yaya or silva or hart or zabba then you will play even if your 19 you will play
looking at the bench last season rodwell was never ready always had a injury and was he really fighting for a place????? the EDS there is talent but nothing standing out

but if your not better then you must fight for a place show willing but in the end jack your not a top 4 player and your level of fitness is what lets you down at manchester city you must put it in
week in week out not just 1 game you have to start for 20 games and rip up tree's

if i was 16 I would jump at the chance to sign for man city just like 10 years ago I will have jump to sign for united its what the best on offer at the time and you must be mad if you looked at the Etihad campus and turn it down

I agree Ancoats the academy and facilities from an outsider looking in appear to be outstanding, the concern is the disconnection between the young players coming through and opportunities at first team level.

No one is going to leave the academy and be better than Silva or Yaya their development will only take place with first team opportunities.

My case in point is Rekik. 19 years of age, played for the Dutch national side, provisional 30 for the world cup and he is fifth choice, at best, centre back and in my opinion Sagna would play before him. Where is his route to the first team? Surely in home matches against the West Hams/Stokes etc he is good enough now for game time.

Take Barclay he has developed this year, to the hottest prospect, by playing first team football, so have Stones, Sterling etc. Where as our kids our still miles from being given an opportunity. It must be disheartening. Until that changes the criticism about young players and City will mot stop.

 

[BillyShears]

It is not just young english players it is young players in general. This might be hard to accept but our record of late of giving young players a chance or developing them is appalling.

Liverpool have brought through sterling, flanaghan, arsenal, wilshere, gibbs and will be playing nineteen year old chambers next year. United cleverley, welbeck, Everton barclay, stones. We have produced absolutely nothing.

While everyone is rejoicing at the possible signing of Mangala, Nastasic who suffered a loss of form and injuries will now be fourth choice. Rekik who is twenty years old in december, has represented his country and in the provisional squad 30 man squad will now be fifth choice. How are we developing him?

Rodwell has now gone, the last academy graduate Richards is the next to leave. It may be an inevitable consequence of being successful but lets not get sensitive when the blatantly obvious is pointed out. Our development of players has been appalling

Also to those who keep pointing out Zaha, like it or not young players have come through and been given opportunities at Old Trafford.

I don't think that's a fair assessment at all for many reasons. The major one though is indelibly linked to our takeover and the change in expectations at the club. Whereas prior to the takeover Jim Cassel did a wonderful job of producing good players, it's fair to say that in terms of the qualities required to play at the very highest level, most of them were found wanting. Probably the best of the bunch was Johnson who had the technical qualities but was mentally not strong enough and didn't have the desire. However Cassel produced a very good number of PL and below players.

After the takeover the focus changed to give the youth set up more coherence, better coaches, and better raw materials in terms of sourcing the best young players not just from England but from all over the world. But this process has been gradual and is still ongoing with the Etihad campus not even open, and Rodolfo Borrel and Txiki having only been around for a couple of years.

The examples of United and Liverpool are totally unfair IMO. Both of those clubs have been doing what we're doing now for well over a decade now. Their youth academies are much further ahead in their development. Notwithstanding that, both clubs have leaned on their academies in recent times for different reasons. In terms of United, Ferguson was happy to have average players who were brought up fearing him, in his squad. It may seem a glib thing to say, but it's true because he could scare them into playing out of their skins. The downside of this was seen last season because those players were found out. In Liverpool's case, Rodgers is ironically enough seeing the fruits of Rodolfo Borrel's work at their academy. Something which we can look forward to in the coming years.

In neither case would I be looking at the comparison with City and feeling embarrassed.

But what about our own needs and our current situation. Again, it can't be seen in isolation of the takeover and the context of the last five years. Five years ago we needed to build a squad which was capable of winning the PL. Our starting point was somewhere around a mid table best XI, so there was a lot of work needed and a lot of players were brought in. Sadly a lot of money was wasted (especially by Hughes) and as such we had two intense tranches of buying players to get ourselves to where we are now. It is entirely unrealistic to have expected us to throughout this process also bring players into the first team from an academy which was nascent in it's development. We needed to establish ourselves as a top team which is what we have done.

What will happen next is IMO two fold. Firstly we'll see better players coming out of the academy as the work of the last five years both in terms of youth transfer policy and in terms of coaching bares fruit. At the same time we'll see the club in general being in a much better position to give those young players a chance because we will be more established within the elite. However those players will eventually have to be good enough or they'll be moved on.

There's a delicate balance we need to strike, but you'd have to be totally blind to not see that our owners are desperate to try and have an effective academy and also for it to produce players for our own first team. This was part of the reasoning in changes of management at all levels by Khaldoon over the last three years.