Manchester City To Blame For England's World Cup Failure? Reality Check Needed
By Tim Simpson (Contributor) on July 10, 2010
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In recent days the British media have looked for a scapegoat regarding the problems in English football, and these highly paid "professional journalists" have come to the conclusion that it is the fault of one club, Manchester City.
Journalists like Brian Woolnough have written articles stating that the fact that City are investing in their squad with the acquisitions of foreign stars, is the reason for England's failure in the World Cup. This is absolutely ludicrous and here is why.
Manchester City got taken over on the September 1st, 2008, and have since spent over £250 million on new players, an excessive amount in their bid to become a top level European club.
However, the summer before, they won the FA Youth Cup—reached the semi-finals in 2009, losing to Arsenal—and represented England in the Dallas Cup, a tournament bringing the best youth teams in the world together, reaching the semi-finals before losing to Sao Paulo on penalties but beating the AC Milan academy and two North American youth sides.
Last year, City's academy had a disappointing year, but the under 16s are largely tipped to be the next great youth group through the ranks.
City have brought through 31 academy talents to play for the first team in 12 years, 12 still at the club, five at other Premier League clubs with nine more currently at Championship clubs, so to claim City have not done as much as any other club to help English football is just wrong. 15 of these academy talents are English, one Welsh and five Irishmen.
So City's academy is rightfully known as one of the best in England, and considering Arsenal produce far less English players, it is only rivalled by West Ham.
What have Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea produced this decade?
Pretty much zilch. So City's academy is doing its best to produce top quality English talent, but no academy is really producing it, so the problem must be deeper at grassroots level.
In Holland, the system is aimed at developing technical ability, and the world class Ajax academy continually produces top quality talent that then moves to top European clubs and develop into quality players, and look at the result, a World Cup final.
Spain keep the majority of their talent closer to home, but with Barca's world class academy and then their sheer size as a football club, they have seven of the first 11 of the Spain national side because they are the ultimate club, one of a kind.
The problem with English talent is that it is in such short supply that it is extremely overrated and overvalued, so they stick ludicrous price tags on the like of James Milner and therefore European clubs cannot afford to buy them. So, you end up stuck in a continuous cycle where English players do not develop new technique's and skills because they are forever stuck in their comfort zone at an English club.
So then what? How do we try and help them improve? We buy foreign players, therefore the English players get some development alongside these quality players and these players improve the team. However, these foreigners are also cheaper for most clubs and readily available, so English lads then get shafted because they aren't ready.
The problem is that we can't start guaranteeing English lads places, like with the new eight homegrown in a 25 man squad rule, because what do they have to work for? They break through at 18, play two good years, earn a massive contract and are set for life, what do they have to achieve?
English lads need to go to foreign clubs and learn a different aspect to their games, look at the best England player of the last decade, Owen Hargreaves. He learnt his trade at Bayern Munich and if it wasn't for injuries he would be integral to both Manchester United and England. At the moment, however, England are one dimensional and this won't change without massive changes throughout the organisation.
But back to City, yes they have spent big, but look who they bought: Englishmen in Gareth Barry, Wayne Bridge, Adam Johnson and Joleon Lescott, a welshman in Craig Bellamy and an Irishman in Shay Given.
City have been building a good mix of foreign talent and British and Irish talent, and of course they have spent a lot of money, but they will never get good value for a player anymore because other clubs will milk them for every penny they can get, as will players and agents because they all know City are the richest club on Earth.
It's the price they have to pay, but it's not like it's any different to any other club who's competed at the top of the Premier League, with the exception of Arsenal, the only difference is the rate of inflation is a lot higher for City.
So far this year, City have spent £24 million on David Silva, £19.5 million on Yaya Toure(another piece of British media prejudice claiming Toure cost £28 million and 220k a week in wages, it's 110k) and £10.5 million on Jerome Boateng, which are all good prices. This takes their total expenditure to £507,037,500 since the 97/98 season.
The table below shows the total expenditure:
1) Chelsea: £732,640,500
2) Man Utd: £507,176,000.
3) Man City: £507,037,500.
4) Tottenham: £499,977,000.
5) Liverpool: £491,249,700.
6) Arsenal: £284,489,500.
7) Aston Villa: £260,914,500.
8) Everton: £230,138,500.
Now that says a lot, and bear in mind United and Liverpool have no money, so won't be spending any money on £20 million signings that used to be an annual event at Old Trafford.
Now let's look at the losses:
1) Manchester United: -£231,380,000.
2) Chelsea: -£501,102,000.
3) Liverpool: -£223,158,600.
4) Arsenal: -£36,458,500.
5) Everton: -£51,970,000.
6) Aston Villa: -£140,148,000.
7) Tottenham: -£298,642,500.
8) Man City: -£375,188,300.
Every club makes a loss, and you have to remember City have spent the majority of that in the last three years and haven't tried to recoup the money on their big money signings, and also United would be over £300 million in debt without the sale of Ronaldo.
Therefore, City can be safely discounted as the cause of England's failure, and in fact recognised as a club that has done more than most to try and contribute to England's national team. The problems stem a lot deeper than that and is deep rooted throughout the whole of English football
