Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
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.