There is no denying that we need to increase the number of "homegrown" players within the City squad, however, the reason for this number being lower than we need isn't as simple as "we didn't bother to deal with it" as the overly hirsute moron is attesting.
Homegrown talent, in the main, tends to be English, and even if it isn't, it tends to still be playing for an English club. This means that there's the inherited premium on the price for the player. City have grown their squad, in terms of quality, very quickly, and as such we needed to find high quality players. English high quality players were few and far between, and very, very expensive. Over the last 5 or 6 years how many top quality English players have become available, and City have "missed out on"? Not exactly a lot is it? So, in order to address the situation we'd have needed to spend a fortune, or go for lower quality options. Rodwell and Sinclair. There you go. Adam Johnson too. We have bought howgrown players, but they've turned out to be not of the required standard. You could argue we penny pinched, but I don't believe that's necessarily the case.
Another reason is that we've not been able to develop players of our own of sufficient standard, at least not yet. Again, that's a by-product of how quickly we've improved on the playing field. Players who 6 or 7 years ago would have been good enough to play for City are now not in the right class. If we produced a Stephen Ireland, Micah Richards, Nedum Onouha, Kieran Trippier or Ben Mee tomorrow from the EDS squad, would they be good enough for the first team? In most instances you'd say no. For me there's only Trippier I'd consider for a squad spot, and he'd be rotation at best, and more likely a backup. It's an unfortunate side effect of rapid improvement that your youth setup falls behind. It'll catch up, and with the likes of Lopes, Barker, Bryan, Angelino and Denayer coming through that may be sooner than some think.
Long term the "homegrown" issue won't be one at all, we'll deal with it through maybe a big naming signing every once in a while, but mainly it'll be via internal development.
Of course, Keys ignores all of the above, and goes for the tired argument that it's mismanagement, because you get to be involved at the top level of football at both Barcelona, then Manchester City, if you're incapable of doing the basics right don't you......?
