Officially the least used academy in Europes top 5 leagues.

[cleavers]

Thanks and....

Potential disagreement.
I've inferred from your comments that you perhaps feel what City, and maybe Chelsea, are doing is different from other clubs. I don't think it is. All the top clubs are following the same basic structure of academic and social education alongside football work and then loans for those who can benefit from them. England's top five divisions, as well as leagues around Europe, are littered with footballers developed by Premier League clubs. Everyone of those lads (it is mainly lads for now) is a sign that academies are doing their work. Not all of those kids is working for a premier league club but they all have great jobs which pay them better than any other work they are likely to have been able to get. No matter how much the media tells them they have been let down, they should have the good sense to know better.

...no we don't really disagree, I might disagree about "all clubs" though, we have a local one who just throws them into the deep end of first team only to find out they're not really good enough, that's different, they may end up with a football career, but its often tarnished by being shown that path first, neither of our clubs do that in general, the best are loaned well.

 

[Centurions]

...Our younger teams aren't in general doing tat great, but that is because the best are out getting first team experience at places like leeds and middlesbrough, that's better than being stuck in our stiffs or sat on our bench, if they can force their way onto it. Foden and Garcia are the cream, and have forced their way onto it, or into the first team like Foden, who is waiting to take over from a super star next year...

I'd disagree with the above slightly, I think it's the older players who are out getting 1st team experience either on loan or sold with favourable buyback deals in place. The various youth teams are generally very young and can be out-muscled or just plain outlasted (stamina wise) which is why some of the results can look surprising. The likes of Foden & Garcia do seem to be a tipping point however and actually highlight @Bridgejunky s post on judging the academy (ours and theirs) in 10 years time. I think we'll find then that more of the very best have come through to the 1st team at a young age.

As ever with our owners, their long term plans will look like pure genius at that time. We (or some anyway) just need patience.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

If it was one of my grandkids I'd be asking Why would you want to join ours?

But then past performance isn’t a predictor of future success!

 

[ChicagoBlue]

There are a few salient positives not being portrayed by these stats:

1) The last decade has been one of enormous change at City
2) The CFA has been developed during this period and is starting to show fruit
3) Not all if that fruit is good enough to play for one of the Top 8 teams in Europe
4) Nearly all if that fruit helps seed the English Football League and various other leagues around the world
5) I’ve no idea why there is a bias for Academy players, as many of them at many clubs are not local, but simply early imports from abroad
6) Academies are not just a conveyor belt to saying the club money on a potentially expensive signing in the future, but rather an integral part of the long term business plan of a club in nurturing quality talent and receiving remuneration for it once a player has been deemed surplus to requirements
7) Academies should be focused on the health, well-bring and all around development of their products and ensuring they meet their goals of becoming a full-time professional player who can sustain a high quality life through football and the other skills they learn. Quantify that. And I think the data might be different
8) Coms back in 10 more years, once the CFA has reached the 10 yr Plan point (today) and then had 10 more years to help mature it’s model. I think the results, even from this flawed metric, would be different.

etc...

 

[MarsLlama]

Thanks and....

...no we don't really disagree, I might disagree about "all clubs" though, we have a local one who just throws them into the deep end of first team only to find out they're not really good enough, that's different, they may end up with a football career, but its often tarnished by being shown that path first, neither of our clubs do that in general, the best are loaned well.

I agree with this, I think Everton are the worst for it though. Chucking players in and realising they're average isn't helpful. Davies/Baningime/Holgate/Garbutt/Pennington have all been and gone*, and Calvert-Lewin is only just starting to score regularly.

*Some of those are still in the first team, true, but either not playing well or barely playing at all.

 

[Ban-jani]

An academy that produces one Messi or a KDB or a VVD, as an individual, is better than an academy that produces 8 Lingards.

 

[JASR]

An academy that produces one Messi or a KDB or a VVD, as an individual, is better than an academy that produces 8 Lingards.

The 8 you typed is 90 degrees wrong

 

[twosips]

An academy that produces one Messi or a KDB or a VVD, as an individual, is better than an academy that produces 8 Lingards.

Most top academies are capable of both tbh, and they sell the Lingards for easy money. The once in a generation players come round every ten years, they sell on loads of Lingards, but they'll still produce the odd top class talent too. Not quite a KDB, but still very, very useful. We're not currently doing that bit well enough. We should do better.

 

[Ban-jani]

Most top academies are capable of both tbh, and they sell the Lingards for easy money.

So do City. The PL is littered with our ex academy players and have made money.

We’ve got Foden who has a real chance to be a top player for us but we’ve definitely done the latter, in bringing through and making profit on talent.

 

[cleavers]

So do City. The PL is littered with our ex academy players and have made money.

We’ve got Foden who has a real chance to be a top player for us but we’ve definitely done the latter, in bringing through and making profit on talent.

We also have Garcia, Harwood Bellis, and Doyle, as part of the first team squad, yes they're behind Foden, but its remarkable we have that many.

Outside that we produced Angelino and have re-signed him, we also have Tosin doing very well at Blackburn, and who knows where that may develop, Roberts and Nmecha at M'brough too, and they seem to have improved them. Obviously none of them may make it with us, but we'll likely make money if they don't, so our academy is far from broken like a few try to paint it, personally I think its doing pretty well, and in this guise its still only just over 5 years old.