Officially the least used academy in Europes top 5 leagues.

[Blue Bogey]

That's an interesting one, do you have a source for it?

‘Press Association Sport’

 

[alexmcity]

This just doesn't hold up under any scrutiny though.

If it takes time, and it's a long term effort, don't invite every journalist in the country to the minihad and tell the world you'll have an entire team full of academy players in 10 years.

Don't tell everyone in your end of year message that 1 youth player must come through and play for the first team every season. Don't go around Europe buying up every talented youngster you can find in 2009/10/11 if you know you're not going to give them a chance in 2013/14/15 because the first team results are too important.

If the first 11 years of the takeover were just focusing on the first XI and academy players couldn't be brought through, then why turn it into such a giant, visible part of the club, and therefore a target when you fail to do everything you promised so loudly?

Of course there's also the argument that the whole "first team too important" line doesn't explain why every champions league winner in the last 10 years has had academy players in the starting XI (seems it very much is possible to win everything and have academy players play) but that's a secondary argument.

Of course, you are going to tell them exactly that if you want to attract promising youngsters. You are not going to sign any good prospects by telling them they have little to no chance of making it to the first team.

Of course, the CL winners are likely to have academy players, they are among the most popular and established clubs in the world and attract talents without much problems. City were in a different position, you know.

Besides, the academy is business, and quite successful one. We sold players for over 150m, that's more than United, Liverpool and Arsenal combined. Because of FFP we needed fresh money. And we found them by selling academy players who weren't close to be starters for City anyway.

To want City to close the gap with the best clubs around and surpass them while playing academy players is unrealistic.

 

[Blue Bogey]

Try this one

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...ited-spurs-southampton-portugal-a9026536.html

 

[Semper aggressus]

I'd rather win trophies than have a load of local lads in the side.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Will be interesting to see these stats in 5 years. With players like Foden, Angelino, Garcia, THB, Doyle, Bernabe and some very good U18s, I guess we’ll see an little increase

The problem is that I remember reading similar posts on here every year for the past 6 or so years, with the list of players changing each time. The reality is that the step up from academy to first team is absolutely huge, to the extent that even in a huge injury crisis, Pep trusts a converted midfielder over two academy central defenders. Most clubs will get one player in a generation from the academy that goes on to be a great player for the club (hopefully Foden can become ours) and if they're not challenging at the top of the table, they might also squeeze in a few squad players too. The academy bringing through a generation of talent at the same time seems to happen once in a blue moon and clubs that do it rarely repeat it multiple times. Who have Barcelona really brought through since Busquets that went on to be a great player for them? Who have the rags brought through since the Beckham era? Maybe one of two decent youngsters, but certainly not 4 or 5 more great players all at the same time.

The other issue is the way English clubs are forced to loan players out or sell them with a buy back clause. That means that when we do have an opportunity for an academy player to come in, our most developed academy players that might actually be able to do a job are actually out on loan. And then you have people asking why we're not playing these youngsters that are even further behind in their development than the ones we had to send out on loan because we couldn't give them the minutes. It was wishful thinking from some to suggest that Garcia or a 17-year-old Harwood-Bellis were seriously going to start in central defence for a title-challenging team, when they've got a grand total of just over 2 competitive, professional games between them. But perhaps the fact that we don't have a CB that is ready is a failure of the academy. Or perhaps Sandler and Adarabioyo would have been trusted with the job if we weren't forced to send them out on loan to get them competitive game time.

 

[Jacob Smith]

It’s too much of a risk really. Imagine if we’d given Sancho a couple of games at the end of the 16/17 season instead of Navas or Nolito. Yeah he might have signed a new contract but we’d probably be languishing at the bottom of the Championship right now.

Couldn’t agree more - similarly if Foden had played ahead of Gundogan this year we’d be fighting relegation but thankfully Gundo has us flying high

 

[Cobra]

Try this one -

Top 20 European Academy producers of Premier League players
(Rank, club, minutes, change in ranking from 2017-18)

1 Manchester United 27,395 (-)
2 Tottenham 17,903 (-)
3 Southampton 15,964 (+6)
4 Chelsea 15,870 (-1)
5 Manchester City 13,605 (+7)
6 Sheffield United 12,400 (-1)
7 Liverpool 12,104 (+10)
8 Benfica 11,032 (+23)
9 West Ham 10,608 (+2)
10 Sporting Lisbon 10,127 (+6)
11 Barcelona 9,712 (+22)
12 Ajax 9,418 (-2)
13 Everton 9,404 (-5)
14 Schalke 9,031 (-)
15 Toulouse 8,793 (+70)
16 Leeds 8,279 (-3)
17 Crystal Palace 7,977 (+7)
18 Feyenoord 7,888 (-11)
19 Coventry 7,793 (+113)
20 Arsenal 7,604 (-16)

Premier League clubs 2018-19
(Rank, club, minutes)

1 Manchester United 27,395
2 Tottenham 17,903
3 Southampton 15,964
4 Chelsea 15,870
5 Manchester City 13,605
7 Liverpool 12,104
9 West Ham 10,608
13 Everton 9,404
17 Crystal Palace 7,977
20 Arsenal 7,604
23 Leicester 6,959
24 Fulham 6,921
26 Brighton 6,387
45 Watford 4,850
57 Huddersfield 3,771
68 Cardiff 3,558
70 Wolves 3,531
73 Newcastle 3,492

Presumably that includes the likes of Denayer and Fofana though, who both signed for us aged 18, spent a year in our academy and then went on several loans. Can we really say that our academy actually developed them?

 

[domalino]

Presumably that includes the likes of Denayer and Fofana though, who both signed for us aged 18, spent a year in our academy and then went on several loans. Can we really say that our academy actually developed them?

It doesn't include them, it's only Premier League players.

These are the players -

Mee - 3400 mins
Schmeichel - 3400 mins
Trippier - 2300 mins
Brooks - 2200 mins
Tommy Smith - 1100 mins
Iheanacho - 900 mins
Foden - 320 mins

There might be a few minutes from one or two others but that's 99% of it.

Mee and Schmeichel left before the new academy launched in 2012, we let go of Brooks at 14 & Iheanacho joined at 18.

Not the best return but it shows you that the league as a whole is terrible if we can finish 5th based on that.

Trippier leaving will presumably send us plummeting down that leaderboard this year though.

 

[Blue Bogey]

Presumably that includes the likes of Denayer and Fofana though, who both signed for us aged 18, spent a year in our academy and then went on several loans. Can we really say that our academy actually developed them?

PA state that for those players who moved clubs as a youth player, the last academy they played in is the one credited. How they treated loans I have no idea though.

The difference between my post and the OP of this thread is the OP looks at minutes given to players from all the Top leagues in Europe for the club where they are trained only, whereas I have tried to balance that out by showing that whilst we may not develop players for our own team we are successfully from a Premier League viewpoint producing players to play in the premier league. I would prefer if we produce players for Manchester City but the next best thing would be those not playing for city get to play at a high level.

The OP is a valid one, so I am not trying to argue against it. It is ironic the OP has been posted only a week after I was looking into this and started my own research (off the cuff) into how many players we have produced since 2007 and are now playing in the top leagues in comparison to other premier league clubs, but realised this was a mammoth task and I would need to plan my research more methodically.

edit: just seen your post above Domalino after posting this.

 

[BosnianBlue]

Perception. I guess City won't be near the top ever, but if you use the period when Barcelona had the best homegrown generation it ever had and it will ever have and City who were just starting to push their ways to the top of european football, then you'll definitely get very different results for these two clubs.

The 2nd thing people are usually wrong on this subject is that they think City should play more youngsters in first team. If they were god enough they would play and they are usually not good enough as pretty much none of them finish playing in the club of City's stature. If there is something to blame, than it is if we scout kids good when bringing them to the academy or/and if we have good coaches in academy to develop them.

It's not hard to play the likes of McTominay, it's bit harder to be mid-table.