...I wasn’t aware of City bringing loads of youngsters through.
...I wasn’t aware of City bringing loads of youngsters through.
davids
Player Valuation: £60m
Other than Foden it's hard to think of anyone else.
....but are any academies feeding top PL teams with a flow of youngsters? I’m not defending it per se, but the demands and money are such that the trend is to buy better than what you have.
mightymoyes
Player Valuation: £70m
well kenny will still be a premier league footballer maybe not with us.
then you have someone like robinson at fulham, hes a premier league footballer who we had to let go cos he couldnt get game time with us.
people would cry if he had of learnt on the job with us in the premier league when he wasnt ready.
I would like to see our under age teams concentrate more on a passing and moving game. I think this would provide with a greater range of skills to help them develop into better all round players.
There isn't too much that can be done about the height of a young player and the natural athleticism is something that can be helped but there is only so much you can do.
But, there is a lot you can do with coaching about how the game should be played, comfortable receiving the ball, comfortable in passing, clever in your movement and in the positions that you take.
I would like to see our young lads play where they dominate possession, where passing and movement is as important as scoring and winning.
I do think as well that we probably have unrealistic expectations about how many first team players come from the academy. I think our record for producing players is as least as good as most other clubs.... but, producing a top quality Premiership player is a difficult thing to do.
The quality of the team they are coming into is also a factor. I wonder how well Foden or TAA would do if they were playing for Sheffield Utd just now.
@Eggs pointed out earlier that we have an excellent record of buying young players in the 18-20 age bracket and developing them into quality players and that is probably the most cost effective and quickest method of finding first team players.
There isn't too much that can be done about the height of a young player and the natural athleticism is something that can be helped but there is only so much you can do.
But, there is a lot you can do with coaching about how the game should be played, comfortable receiving the ball, comfortable in passing, clever in your movement and in the positions that you take.
I would like to see our young lads play where they dominate possession, where passing and movement is as important as scoring and winning.
I do think as well that we probably have unrealistic expectations about how many first team players come from the academy. I think our record for producing players is as least as good as most other clubs.... but, producing a top quality Premiership player is a difficult thing to do.
The quality of the team they are coming into is also a factor. I wonder how well Foden or TAA would do if they were playing for Sheffield Utd just now.
@Eggs pointed out earlier that we have an excellent record of buying young players in the 18-20 age bracket and developing them into quality players and that is probably the most cost effective and quickest method of finding first team players.
It's quality not quantity of those brought through. They're not necessarily arsed if only 1-2 come through as long as they're good:
Foden
Sancho
Adarabioyo
Frimpong
Poveda
Matondo
Brahim Diaz
Dilrosun
Iheanacho
Angelino
Ntcham
Angus Gunn
Denayer
Not to mention a few special U23 players like Braaf, Doyle, Delap and Nmecha.
....I’m not knocking it, indeed there’s an argument that Academies are the lungs of British football.
Not sure how many youngsters on your City list are ‘pure Academy’ or how many were purchased from other clubs at home and abroad. The FA Youth Cup was my favourite benchmark of real talent (Hurst, Husband, Dunn, Ball, Jeffers, Osman, Hibbert, Cadamarteri et al won it with us & Rooney was a runner-up to a Villa side that produced some talent) yet City & Chelsea dominated it for years with youngsters who never came through.
it’s an achievement, not a failure that the leagues are littered with Everton Academy products. Posters criticise the coaches, but the issue might be more to do with recruitment than coaching. Saying that, the strategy of purchasing quality youngsters is certainly productive for us (low risk, high reward).
To me I'm just happy if we get 2-3 players through every 5 years that can help the first team squad not necessarily start.
Davies? Kenny? Dowell? Could argue aren't even good enough for our bench. It's just not enough. We certainly need to be buying more in IMO.
Last night I thought everyone on the pitch including Nkounkou was very average. Need at least one to stand out but nope. Number 7 for them bossed the game from the first minute.
brettangellnightporter
Player Valuation: £1.5m
Cannon and Small? Rock on
....and post-1970 those numbers might always have been similar.
Lots of them (most of them) haven't been good enough for City though have they? So there are plenty of comparable players like that for us to be fair. Angus Gunn has so far only reached the same level as Jamie Jones, and not many people count him as a success for our academy.
Jamie Jones never played a PL game.
City are perennial PL champs now. Some of them might not be up to champion standard but they're all top half PL players I'd say.
How many people do we produce that are top half PL players?
Angus Gunn is 25 and on loan at a bottom half championship side, as is Rabbi Matondo. It's a bit of a stretch to say they're top half PL players I would have thought. If we're counting them then surely the likes of Dowell can be similarly inflated? Ntcham I like but he's not even really cemented himself in the Celtic team and they're awful. Adarabioyo is in the same defence as Robinson. Some of those City players (Foden, Sancho etc) are obviously way above what we've produced in the last couple of years. The rest I think you're hugely exaggerating the current level of.
Philw
Player Valuation: £50m
Nearly all of them were bought by City when they were 15/16. Only 2 truly came through City's academy (I'm not including Sancho here - see below), and one of those is currently at Fulham, so probably about the same level as Kenny (played a full season for Schalke, on Burnley's radar).
Only two of them are inarguably top 10 PL players, and one of those is Sancho, who they bought from Watford (at around 13/4 I think). The rest are all playing lower level, and several around 24 and playing for the likes of Celtic. Not realistically much better than what we produce, and that's the good ones who they've brought in late. Where are the rest of the kids who were in their academy from 6/7?
But Gunn got City £10m and has played multiple games in the PL so he's not Jamie Jones.
Matondo is 20, Bundesliga player, out on loan now but will have a better career than a Dowell for sure.
The rest are down to personal preference but I'd say the likes of Seria A table topping Brahim Diaz, PL regular Iheanacho, CL semi-finalist Angelino etc. are better than what we're producing.
I'm not too sure why you're arguing (although you live for it) since we all agree our academy is a bit thin on quality these days.
