Our current status and our youth academy

[stockportblue]

I spoke to someone who used to scout for City a few weeks ago.When he first started at Platt Lane he was told to look for strong athletes who stood out.The coaching staff at Platt Lane would then turn them into footballers.If you look at Nedum,Ishmael Miller and the D'Laryea's and Richards you have a good idea what the prototype City academy starlet is.The belief at City is that you have to be at least a middle distance athlete to be able to compete at Premier league level.If you have outstanding pace like Robbie Mak so much the better.Blue balls is spot on in what he says.

United believe in the individual City veer towards the collective.Its a case of a different philosophy -at United they believe in the 4 v 4 Dutch method from the time Rene Meulensten was technical director before he started working with the first team.

 

[mcfc1996]

The acedmey will have to produce more SWPs & Irelands rather than Crofts & Floods.

 

[Skip Donoghue]

this is not actually the case utd look for totally different things in there young players U9 onwards than city do city go for the big strong athletic build who have decent ability utd on the other hand go for the more skilful players the ones that standout for there ability alone and who maybe are not the biggest or quickest
this is where as a parent you have to make a decsision based on what will suit your son and what will give him the best chance to progress when u9s sign for a club no matter who the club is it is a lottery for every sucsess story there are hundreds of failures and that includes city
i know this as my son was courted by all the major northwest clubs liverpool, everton ,utd ,city, bolton and blackburn and oldham for good measure when it came to actually signing for a club it was between 2 of the above our decession was made on where our son would be happiest and where he felt most comfortable it had nothing to do with if he may make it as a proffesional footballer because the chances of failure are far greater than success and if your son is not happy then those odds increase vastly
so there is a lot more to consider than him making it, in fact this is the last thing you think about

I get your point about choosing a place for your son to be happy and hope he is doing well.

But based on the players that have come through the city academy i think it is a bit of a generalisation and a slight on the academy to suggest they look for players of a 'big, strong, athletic build' where as united go for the footballers. Obviously we have been in a position where we have had to put youngsters into the team earlier than expected and it seems obvious that as the league is so physical then there would need to be a certain amount of strength and pace required, especially if you were playing in a defensive position like micah and ned. However we have also recruited players and given opportunities to SWP, joey barton, willo flood, stephen jordan, lee croft, stevie and jonno as well. None of these are physically imposing and only SWP is particularly pacey. If your theory about united were true then surely they would have taken stevie on when he had a trial but apparently they deemed him too small and that he wouldnt develop into a premiership player despite having all the neccessary skills in his feet.

The academy has kept this club alive however i can see it becoming increasingly difficult, especially in the next 5 years, to make a breakthrough into the first team. Our owners want to propel us into a position where we are consistently competing for all the major honours including europe, it is now much riskier for the manager and the club in general to place such faith in the academy system as now they pretty much have to be the best players in europe where as before the level was lower and they were only really required to be able to do a job in the league. I still believe that if they are some of the best young players in europe then they will get a chance but the bar has been raised and we can now buy the best if we have weaknesses in our side. It might change after we have established ourselves but i realistically i think we will see fewer and fewer players coming into the first team from the academy.

your statement does have valid points and you hit the nail on the head when you said we had to rely on the accademy in the past we now dont, this is why city went for the bigger boys because they wanted to manufacture footballers and they are not on there own when it comes to developing footballers much of the accademies do the same
the difference with utd's accademy is that they are looking for that one "diamond" a rooney if you like a genuine world class talent the reason for this they do not rely on there accademy for players.
there is also a difference in attitude at city and utd from U9-U10 utd d not care if there squads in these age groups get beat every week becuase there philosophy is to develop players to progress up the ladder to the 1st team and feel that it should be fun for boys of 8-9 and 10 to play and enjoy nit more than wining dont get me wrong they dont lose many at this level but this is not the main priority they do not give instruction during games and they never ever tell a boy off for a mistake
city on the other hand have a different philosophy they want the lads to win that is the most important thing the players are given instruction during games and expected to follow it the result does matter even at a young age
the example of ireland you gave is a good one but he was brought over to city at 14 he will of had his trial at utd but probably found himself playing will lads of similar ablility so was not given an opportunity
when he came to city he more than likely stood out beccause of his ability and was taken on dont get me wrong i am not saying city wont take a lad because of his size but it does play a factor when they select there boys
city are very good at taking lads fromother clubs at 14 as the rules on accademy players change if you go through the players who have made the first team the majoraty have come from other clubs at 14 SWP forest, MJ leeds, MR oldham, joey barton everton and SI from ireland and when i talk about players who have made it at city i mean players who have played in the 1st team on a regular basis not the odd apperance here and there
this however will probably change as city will no longer rely on there accademy so much and i have said earlier any player making it at city will have to be a world class player from now on so maybe citys philosophy will change

 

[Skip Donoghue]

I spoke to someone who used to scout for City a few weeks ago.When he first started at Platt Lane he was told to look for strong athletes who stood out.The coaching staff at Platt Lane would then turn them into footballers.If you look at Nedum,Ishmael Miller and the D'Laryea's and Richards you have a good idea what the prototype City academy starlet is.The belief at City is that you have to be at least a middle distance athlete to be able to compete at Premier league level.If you have outstanding pace like Robbie Mak so much the better.Blue balls is spot on in what he says.

United believe in the individual City veer towards the collective.Its a case of a different philosophy -at United they believe in the 4 v 4 Dutch method from the time Rene Meulensten was technical director before he started working with the first team.

you now your stuff stockportblue are you involved with the youth at city in any way

 

[heatonmoorblue]

united have taken advantage of that 14 year old rule as much as anyone with players like richardson and eagles from down south and gibson and evans from ireland and i think all 'big' clubs rob the promising youngsters as we have with almost all of ours with the only exception in the first team being big ned who has been at city since he was 10/11 i think. I think they have had eckersley, bardsley and now welbeck as their manchester lads who have had first team opportunites which suggests that that the united youth system is a bit of a myth still living off the glory of the scholes, nevilles, butt generation.

My good mates twin brothers have been on the books at united since they were 10, they are now 16 and one of them is to sign professional terms when he hits 17. He was 1 of only 2/3 players in his age group to have been offered a pro contract and i have been informed that united have been very disappointed with the ability the players that have been coming through in the past couple of years. United to be fair to them do still give opportunities to a lot of younger players where as if you look at liverpool, benitez has completely restructured the system and got rid of the men that found and developed players like owen, gerrard, fowler, mcmananman and all that seems to have occured is a youth team built up of a collection of foreigners and now everton seem to be developing the young scouse talent like rodwell, vaughan, baxter and of course rooney.

As far as looking for players with physical attributes and making footballers out of them, i think this is obviously a worry if that is still the case, pace and strength may be vital for a defender in which he can be coached in othr aspects like positioning etc. but it is less important say for a winger who may be able to get to the byline but once he gets there wont have the neccesary technique to actually cross the ball (lennon being a prime example) Maybe there is a problem with academies in general and a lack of english talent which means clubs resort to bringing in kids from around the globe in order to produce world class stars, from what i hear of the city lads the ones with the biggest futures appear to be mak, wiess, nimley and trippier. Only one of them is english so maybe the technique and ability is much worse in the english boys.

I can only see us signing more and more foreign players into the academy in the next few years in the hope of producing a fabregas which is a shame and must be discouraging for local lads hoping to make it here.

 

[Skip Donoghue]

heatonmoor blue

you are bang on with your statement and also correct about utd only offering terms to a couple of players in your freinds age group, the reason for this is that maybe the talent just is not out there, but what utd regard as talent and what other clubs regard as talent are worlds apart as i have said they look for the world class performer the lad who is big, strong, technically sound and quick basically a ronaldo
now how many lads have all these attributes 1 in a million if your lucky,

this is where city will have to change there outlook and i would expect to see more and more young players being brought into the club from abroad
for me the other problem when it comes to young players involved in junior and amature football is the lack of top notch coaches we are worlds behind in terms of numbers of qualified coaches compared to germany, italy, spain, france and holland
also the fa standard on coaching is stuck in the dark ages compared to the other nations i have mentioned and maybe this has a bearing on the trechnical ability of our young footballers

 

[stockportblue]

There is an ongoing debate about youth development and coaching that will probably never have a resolution.Im currently on my second FA course and although I recognise the criticism of the FA, probably from the Charles Hughes days the courses are useful and I have learned plenty.

Having said that the FA learning doesnt cover things like Coerver training does.If you google John Cartwright you will find a different take on youth coaching that involves emphasis on technique.In my opinion this is particularly important at the younger age levels.

Before we get to critical of our football nation we have to remember that our players at top level have excellent technique to be able to play at the speed they do.There is still improvement in the coaching methods to be made particularly in retention of the ball by making youngsters more comfortable when receiving the ball under pressure.