It's a really interesting article about City and United. Just to echo what a few lads have said.
City are hammering all the academies accross the North West. Though completely unethical the deal with St Bedes has made a huge difference. They dominate Manchester. They are also starting to encroach onto Merseyside with increasing success. I know a lad who may 16 now they got from Huyton who was highly thought of. They also took our best player in I think the current under 16s (may be 17s though).
It has affected us a fair bit. Mainly because we are the dominant force in Liverpool, Liverpool FC have a very different model and have done for 15 years. There operation is as meek as Uniteds now is in Manchester. However City's encroaching onto Merseyside has just meant they get hammered by two teams not 1 now.
How Everton respond will be interesting. I wonder if you will see teams try to keep a relationship and then go in for players later on? Similar to what we were trying to do with their centre half.
The reality is that City have a poor record of bringing players through. There were two derisory comments from employees who work for them. They were basically "even Everton and Burnley bring more through than us". The subtext was, even no Mark clubs can get players through.
This irked me on a couple of levels. Firstly the comparison to Burnley is ridiculous. Everton are streets ahead of them. Secondly it minimised what we do in giving players a chance. We are by far and away the most successful at granting young players premier league game time.
The final point that irked me though, re enforced by the article was that Everton don't get great results. We have finished 2nd 2nd 1st the last 3 seasons in the league. Nobody comes closets that level of consistency.
The middle season of the 3 we were 1 win away from being consecutive champions. However we didn't play our best under 18s players at all. Walsh, Dowell, Kenny, Ledson, Davies, Connolly all didn't play the last game of the season when eligible. Last season a number on those still eligible for the under 18s played with the first team. City will say they promote the best players and I'm sure they do, but not to the extent Everton do.
Those lads mentioned above who had that record at under 18s are now dominating the under 23s (again omitted from the article) or starring for the first team.
It's a slight tangent but it gives an insight into some of the arrogance of some involved with City's academy.
I know another poster questioned me on this and I forgot their name. They know more than me and it's a shame they didn't give that much detail. However Everton had always remained very strong at younger ages. One of our old under 9 coaches I knew now works in a very senior position in US football for example.
However City are waiting until they are 12/13 and picking the best players up. I am not sure how severe it is but they have managed it with at least one player over the last two years, and are getting lads from areas like Huyton which would have been unheard of 10 years ago. It would have been unheard of even during the high point of United in the years around the class of 92.
As said though different teams respond differently. United don't worry about results. They don't even give them positions. Just stick lads out there and let them
sort it out. Liverpool are similar to this. We are more in the middle. Yet despite the dominance United have still brought more lads through than City.
We will see. I don't know how worried the club are. Hopefully ploughing more money in will help. I also think the entering for these lads post 18 after the school period ends is no bad idea. If this was a central motivator (which in many cases it will be) once they've done their A levels then they may be more open to moving. I think you will see lots of clubs beginning to target City in that way.
