Bournemouth

[thehumblegringo]

The video of the Watford game on the weekend shows one of the visiting players who looks an awful lot younger and smaller than his team mates, so I'm sure you're right, the teams we play at this level every week are not always made up of eighteen year olds.

However, the inference of what you say about our team is that they are all "old" by the standards of the league they play in - this struck me as wrong, so I decided to look into it.

The team which played on Saturday was missing the best player in the under 18 squad in my opinion, Sion Spence - he was eighteen yesterday as it turns out. Also absent since very early in the season has been Keenan Patten who, with Spence and Sam Bowen makes up a very good central midfield three for this level - Keenan was born on 7/4/01, so, at seventeen, he's eligible to play for the Under 18s next season.

The team which played Watford contained one player, Nianza Mayembe, whose date of birth I could not find, but I can remember watching him play for our Under 16s against Swansea a couple of seasons ago (I met you at the game) and being told that he was 13 or 14 at that time, so, assuming that's true, he's got at least two seasons of being eligible for the Under 18s left.

The oldest of the other ten starters on Saturday was keeper George Ratcliffe who only reached eighteen on 12 September, centreback Ryan Reynolds is three days younger than George and they are the only two out of the ten who are eighteen today. Another centreback, Trystan Jones, will be eighteen on Sunday, but if I've understood the rules correctly, those three (plus Spence) are the only ones who won't be available at this level next season.

The rest are seventeen or under. Next oldest is captain Sam Bowen who was born on 14/1/01, while striker Dan Griffiths was born two days later. Recent signing from Southampton Joel Bagan won't be eighteen until the third of September next year and striker Isaak Davies only turned seventeen on the 25th of last month - so, that makes them eligible for another two seasons of Under 18 football I believe.

The other three are 16 year old's Connor Davies (born 7/5/02) and Rubin Colwill (27/4/02) and Eli King, who won't be sixteen until 22 December.

So, if the sides we are playing at youth level are including their fair share of under age players, then the same definitely applies with City. Most of these players were part of an Under 16 squad from a couple of seasons ago which struck me as, potentially, one of the best crops of youngsters I'd seen since we gained Academy status in 2004 and the intervening period has done nothing to make me change my mind.

I'm not going to say that there are x number of players who will play for City's first team in our Under 18 squad and their names are......., but I'd be very disappointed if none of them go on to be professionals at senior level who play league football - based on recent years though, how likely is it that they will do so at Cardiff?

Thanks for the informed response Bob. Having watched Mayembe quite a few times I do have big hopes for the lad.

Obviously I'm not gonna do massive amounts of research just to prove a point but I did have a quick look at the Watford squad that played our 18s on Saturday.

Only 6 players are even mentioned in the squad so I'm assuming they had at least 5 players in the starting 11 under 16.

Of the six who are mentioned in their squad, Gordon, Sanders and Bennetts are 17 and MacLean, Matthews and Hutchinson are 16.

This is just a small sample and it's not a criticism of how well our players are doing, I'm only pointing out that players like Jesse Lingard who played down a year for his development are an exception to the rule.

I went to watch Man City u23s vs Swansea on Saturday afternoon and the majority of City's squad were 16 or 17! I know we're talking about levels here but Swansea are also doing fairly well at u23 level and City won 4-1 with Rabbi Matondo scoring a hatrick.

I find it completely baffling that Spence was on the verge of a first team call up two seasons ago and now he's playing solely for the u18s!

If you are looking at a potential first team player coming through then surely this kid should be stretched and challenged to push him out of his comfort zone not just ticking along scoring 30 goals against kids his own age.

[the other bob wilson]

Thanks for the informed response Bob. Having watched Mayembe quite a few times I do have big hopes for the lad.

Obviously I'm not gonna do massive amounts of research just to prove a point but I did have a quick look at the Watford squad that played our 18s on Saturday.

Only 6 players are even mentioned in the squad so I'm assuming they had at least 5 players in the starting 11 under 16.

Of the six who are mentioned in their squad, Gordon, Sanders and Bennetts are 17 and MacLean, Matthews and Hutchinson are 16.

This is just a small sample and it's not a criticism of how well our players are doing, I'm only pointing out that players like Jesse Lingard who played down a year for his development are an exception to the rule.

I went to watch Man City u23s vs Swansea on Saturday afternoon and the majority of City's squad were 16 or 17! I know we're talking about levels here but Swansea are also doing fairly well at u23 level and City won 4-1 with Rabbi Matondo scoring a hatrick.

I find it completely baffling that Spence was on the verge of a first team call up two seasons ago and now he's playing solely for the u18s!

If you are looking at a potential first team player coming through then surely this kid should be stretched and challenged to push him out of his comfort zone not just ticking along scoring 30 goals against kids his own age.

You'll get no argument from me there - the only thing I would say is that it might just be that Spence was the young midfield player Neil Warnock was talking about recently and the injury he is, presumably, suffering from is holding him back currently, but I accept that's something of a long shot.

I'd seen us play Colchester, Birmingham, Hull and Palace at home before missing Saturday's match and the City team certainly didn't tower over any of them - Birmingham and Hull struck me as big sides and I'd say Palace were bigger than us as well. While it doesn't automatically follow that they must be older sides than us, we are talking about a time of life when boys are still growing, so, on most occasions, you'd expect the bigger team at this level to also have a higher average age.

[BlueArmy 86]

Proof that a small club with very little standout history, small crowd capacity, and very few superstars can not only get to the premier league, but stay there, and even get up to 7th in the table.
What’s the secret?

You sign David Brooks

[thehumblegringo]

You'll get no argument from me there - the only thing I would say is that it might just be that Spence was the young midfield player Neil Warnock was talking about recently and the injury he is, presumably, suffering from is holding him back currently, but I accept that's something of a long shot.

I'd seen us play Colchester, Birmingham, Hull and Palace at home before missing Saturday's match and the City team certainly didn't tower over any of them - Birmingham and Hull struck me as big sides and I'd say Palace were bigger than us as well. While it doesn't automatically follow that they must be older sides than us, we are talking about a time of life when boys are still growing, so, on most occasions, you'd expect the bigger team at this level to also have a higher average age.

Having watched age group academy football for quite a while now it never ceases to amaze me the size of some of the kids from the Midlands amd London compared to our lads.
I frequently see eleven year old kids who would have no problem whatsoever getting in Stringfellows!

[NYCBlue]

Proof that a small club with very little standout history, small crowd capacity, and very few superstars can not only get to the premier league, but stay there, and even get up to 7th in the table.
What’s the secret?

The secret is to stay up the first season and crack on from there.

[Loramski]

Thanks for the informed response Bob. Having watched Mayembe quite a few times I do have big hopes for the lad.

Obviously I'm not gonna do massive amounts of research just to prove a point but I did have a quick look at the Watford squad that played our 18s on Saturday.

Only 6 players are even mentioned in the squad so I'm assuming they had at least 5 players in the starting 11 under 16.

Of the six who are mentioned in their squad, Gordon, Sanders and Bennetts are 17 and MacLean, Matthews and Hutchinson are 16.

This is just a small sample and it's not a criticism of how well our players are doing, I'm only pointing out that players like Jesse Lingard who played down a year for his development are an exception to the rule.

I went to watch Man City u23s vs Swansea on Saturday afternoon and the majority of City's squad were 16 or 17! I know we're talking about levels here but Swansea are also doing fairly well at u23 level and City won 4-1 with Rabbi Matondo scoring a hatrick.

I find it completely baffling that Spence was on the verge of a first team call up two seasons ago and now he's playing solely for the u18s!

If you are looking at a potential first team player coming through then surely this kid should be stretched and challenged to push him out of his comfort zone not just ticking along scoring 30 goals against kids his own age.

We were regularly playing Academy lads in the under-23s until the end of the 2016-17 season. The game against Ipswich with the 40 pass goal that James Waite scored was in January 2017, Waite (17) started and Spence (16) came on at half time and the pair of them held central midfield with the minimum of fuss. Cameron Coxe had just turned 18 and played centre-half. Why that policy changed is a mystery and there's no point in speculating why (even though I've used up half the internet doing exactly that in the other thread).

I've often wondered what happens to age group teams when a Pulis or Allardyce take over the first team, I assume there's a similar conflict as seems to have happened here since Warnock took over. Is the under-23 set-up there as a reflection of, and a feeder for, the first team or is it there to continue the development of the youngsters? Obviously the ideal answer is 'both' but the contrast between what Bellamy and Warnock are doing makes that difficult here. For example, I assume James Waite played in Paterson's position for the under-23s on Monday but there really wouldn't be any point in hoofing long balls up to him all game, I doubt he won 23 headers if we did.

It's something that needs to be sorted soon, and hopefully will be, if the talented 15-18 year-olds we appear to have are going to realise their potential here.