Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
There's a couple of points here. First, the system used before this season produced decent results for our younger age group teams and the odd eye catching result, but is it just coincidence that in the thirteen seasons I think it is now since we've had Academy status, it seems to me that our Under 18s have ended up somewhere between fourth and eighth in a ten team league and, a run to the Quarter Finals with the Ramsey, Gunter team of 2008 I believe it was apart, made an early exit from the Youth Cup?

You only have read my pieces on the Under 18 team on my blog for a short while to come across me emphasising that it isn't all about results at this level, but when you get the same sort of mediocre/mid table results season after season and there are hardly any home grown players making it into the first team squad, you have to come to some sort of conclusion about how good or bad our Academy has been.

The other thing was to reinforce what Gringo pointed out regarding the comments by Lawrence Hallett in the piece from City's website, in particular

"Our mainland European counterparts engage in competitive leagues from the age of six, whereas UK academies start at 18. The EDLTS allows us to plug that gap and enable the introduction of competitive match mentality much earlier in the Academy pathway"

I agree entirely that we don't want to see a win at all costs attitude at the expense of individual development, but it's obvious that the people charged with producing good young footballers who have a chance of making it into the first team at the club believe that some competitive football for our younger age group teams is something that is to be encouraged and I'm happy enough to go along with them, especially as results so far have been good.
I broadly agree but differ on the conclusion.

I don't think that results matter at all or give any indication. Coming top rather than midtable might show that the team is getting stronger, but this is about developing, realistically, one player from an age group and not a team. And even then, getting a regular one from each age group good enough for the first team squad is a ridiculously successful strikerate. How well they all perform as a team doesn't have a bearing on that one stand-out player.

You might say that a strong team has more of a chance of having a stand-out player in. Maybe it's true and I'd like to see what the evidence says. Given that a major attribute for making it is ambition/drive/workrate, it may be hard to see this at a young age.