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Young Manchester City guns taking the fast route
Stuart Brennan
June 10, 2011
The route taken by Manchester City’s new owners when they first came to Manchester in 2008 has become part of Blue legend.
New chairman Khaldoon al Mubarak might have been expected to throw open the doors of the City of Manchester Stadium, like the new gunslinger in town.
But, apart from the fact such showmanship is not the urbane City chairman’s style, the reality that he visited the club’s academy at the Platt Lane complex en route to the stadium was highly symbolic.
From day one, Khaldoon promised that the people he represented, Sheikh Mansour and the rest of the City board, had the academy down as a key element in the development of the club.
And, while a staggering £325m has been spent on bringing in the kind of talent which has pushed the Blues into the elite of English football, the investment in the academy has been more low-profile but just as significant.
With Uefa’s financial fair play rules about to start biting next season, the nurturing of home-grown talent becomes more vital than ever.
Not that City have ever needed a prod in that regard – Shaun Wright-Phillips, Joey Barton, Dedryck Boyata, Daniel Sturridge, Micah Richards, Stephen Ireland, Michael Johnson and Nedum Onuoha are all testimony to that fact.
Now the Blues are busy preparing the next wave of youngsters to try their luck in the first team next season.
One of the reasons Mark Hughes got the sack at City was his unwillingness to give young players a break. He felt that in a crucial season, experience was the way forward.
Roberto Mancini was briefed that he was expected to give young talent its head – and his first match in charge, the Boxing Day win over Stoke in 2009, saw Dedryck Boyata and Javan Vidal on the substitutes’ bench.
Age no barrier
Mancini went on to blood Boyata, Greg Cunningham, Abdi Ibrahim and Alex Nimely that season, and has again shown this season that age is no barrier, even though competition for first-team places gets tougher with every cheque written.
Those young players will have an exciting new challenge next season, with the inaugural NextGen Series beginning in September, a kind of Champions League for under-19 players.
City have been drawn in a group with Barcelona, Celtic and Marseille – with all matches to be played at first-team stadiums – and the six-month competition will build to a final in January.
The new competition will give young City talents like Abdul Razak, Freddie Veseli and Harry Bunn the chance to shine on an international stage, as well as playing at stadiums like the Nou Camp, San Siro, Celtic Park and Anfield.
But the older City players may be farmed out on loan next season, with the possibility that the elite development team may be scrapped.
City have a number of youngsters who are expected to push for first-team football in the next two seasons, including Israeli ace Gai Assulin, whose first season with the Blues was disrupted by injury.
Then there is 18-year-old Spanish youth international Joan Angel Roman, a sumptuously-talented attacking midfielder, whose 17-year-old countryman Denis Suarez has already been secured from Celta Vigo in a £1m move.
French under-17 winger Jeremy Helan, 18-year-old Ivorian Razak and Veseli – a defender who captained Switzerland to the Under-17 World Cup – are other names to watch. Then there is Bunn, son of former Oldham striker and City coach Frankie, named academy scholar of the year last season after a prolific season which saw him break into the elite development team.
With Boyata, Ibrahim and Nimely all a year older and ready to step up their challenge, the conveyor belt of talent is still chugging along at Carrington and Platt Lane. But Mancini has demanded a better output.
Khaldoon said at the end of the season: “We have continued to invest in the academy and brought on a lot of talent this year. The reserves finished second this year.
“I am very optimistic, especially with some of the talents brought in over the last 12 months.
“The academy continues to go from strength to strength.
“This is always going to be a priority. You need a successful academy.”
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