Plenty of good comment on this thread, and it adds up to being a campaign that was for one reason or another botched up almost from the end of last season's triumph. Worries about FFP, the lack of a CEO, Marwood screwing up, Mancini demanding players such as RVP, Hazard, De Rossi, Martinez and Agger but ending up with a bunch of benchwarmers instead [I will exclude the excellent Nastasic from this criticism as he was signed as our 4th CB and as one for the future], then there was an experimentation with 3-5-2 instead of continuing with our tried and proven 4-2-3-1 set-up, a system that drew criticism from Richards and Lescott. It's all a collective responsibility.
We now have our Barca duo steering the ship, their appointments effectively demoting Mancini from manager to coach, and this is proven by Tricky Tixiki telling the world that our formation for next season will be 4-3-3. If this isn't a case of someone from above interfering with the manager's job, then I don't know what is.
But even so, it is the hierarchy's ambition to develop young players from the academy which is wonderful in itself but is nowhere near guaranteed to bringing the club success, nowhere near the success that could accrue from recruiting players through the transfer market instead. The new facilities might help, but without proper coaches at junior level and without finding wonderful young players for ourselves, players with the requisite skills, temperament, ambition and dedication, then this new concept is doomed to failure.
And finally, developing young players takes time. Are we, the supporters, willing to sit back and wait for an unspecified number of years, trophyless, while these kids are being developed? Especially if the rags are waving the chequebook around and landing more trophies? I don't think so.
