Re: Sunday Supplement
aguero93:20 said:
city saint said:
only just switched on. come on tell me what were doing to ruin football this week
1. Not signing English players
2. Signing Frank Lampard
I would simply point Mr Custis to the following article.
Certainly, the potential is there: 30 of the 46 players in Croatia hail from the UK or Ireland. Light blue is increasingly the dominant colour in many of England’s young dressing rooms.
‘We had seven under-16s in the England squad last year,’ Wilcox reveals. ‘That was a record for us. We have some incredibly talented English players. Brandon Barker, Ashley Smith-Brown, Angus Gunn, Kean Bryan, Tosin Adarabioyo. The players are coming through.
‘Below the under-18 group, over 90 per cent of our academy is English. Recently we offered eight professional contracts and six of those are English boys.
‘Four of those six are local boys. It’s the ideal scenario but the wider you spread the net, the more chance you have of finding the gem.’
The seeds of talent are beginning to germinate. Last season, City’s Under 11s and Under 14s were national champions and the Under 18 side were northern league winners. Under Vieira, an Under 19 side reached the quarter-final of the UEFA Youth League. A 6-0 victory over Bayern Munich reverberated around Europe, with five English names on the team sheet.
Most are yet to be seen in the first team squad, something Vieira attributes to the ‘massive’ gap between youth competitions and the demands of elite football. It is why City are thought to remain receptive to discussions over B-teams in the lower tiers.
As the authorities prevaricate, City are single-minded in their aspiration and little encapsulates the journey from chip-fat to caviar quite like the money and dedication flowing into this academy.