trousers Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2007109/Manchester-City-ditch-Barclays-Premier-Reserve-League.html "Stepping stone to stardom: Man City ditch Reserve League to play against Euro's elite Manchester City have chosen to pull out of next season's Barclays Premier Reserve League in order to provide their youngsters with the platform to play against Europe's elite. The club's academy chief Mark Allen said the decision to ditch the competition and instead focus on the inaugural NextGen Series, a Champions League-style tournament for Under 19s, will better prepare his youth players for life as professional footballers. As revealed by Sportsmail on Wednesday, City's academy and elite development squad players will take on Barcelona in the stand-out tie of the new tournament. 'We'll be competing against the best in Europe, a la the Champions League format,' said Allen. 'We see it as an important chapter in the development of Manchester City. 'The average age for a Premier League debut is becoming older, 21 or 22 when before it might have been 17 or 18. You have to bridge that gap and prepare them for a better standard of football. 'It's the next stepping stone. It will prepare them for those balmy nights we'll hopefully have in the Champions League as the club moves forward. Who knows, we might be seeing the new Lionel Messi on a Thursday night at Hyde.' On the Reserve League, in which City played 19 times last season, Allen said: 'We found it just a little bit too rigid in terms of fixtures. This will allow us the scope for a flexible games programme.' This new European development squad competition seems to tick a lot of the boxes that Cortese was/is trying to achieve by taking Saints out of the formal reserve game circuit last season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saintscottofthenortham Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 I thought this was the idea of u's pulling out of the reserve league? Only we instead of playing Bayern Munich U21's we played Nike Academy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doddisalegend Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 yeah. I thought that's what we had done, though we never heard much about the development squads games (or I just missed the reports) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trousers Posted 23 June, 2011 Author Share Posted 23 June, 2011 http://www.nextgenseries.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gingeletiss Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 http://www.nextgenseries.com/ Don't see our club badge there, so I'd hazard a guess at no! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint_clark Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 Don't see our club badge there, so I'd hazard a guess at no! I get the feeling they're not interested in NPC teams. However, we should be seeing a better standard of opponents in the Development Squads games this season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alehouseboys Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 This would be a very attractive proposition for any club and could see some reserve games very well supported. You can see the interest they'd be having the opportunity to watch Saints res up against Barca, Real, Milan, etc. youngsters if we ever got involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fan The Flames Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 The Next Gen lot would be nuts not to invite us to join. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david in sweden Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 I thought this was the idea of u's pulling out of the reserve league? Only we instead of playing Bayern Munich U21's we played Nike Academy. I think that football has advanced to the stage that players over (say) 22, 23 who haven't made it yet are on the wayout..Gobern? Our U21 side is often "good" 18/19 year olds who have finished their Academy time, and are in line for the first team bench. The remainder..are on their way down to L2 /Conference sides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xerox Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 only 15 club badges shown, one more space left, they are bound to go for us........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The9 Posted 23 June, 2011 Share Posted 23 June, 2011 (edited) Interesting bit of logic with the argument that "The average age for a Premier League debut is becoming older, 21 or 22 when before it might have been 17 or 18"... surely that's due to the hundreds of players who develop in their native countries and are then signed from abroad only when they are established Prem-standard players already, which drives up the average age of debuting players ? That stat is not saying "it takes longer to develop young talent", it says "far fewer young home-developed players get in the teams at all, due to all of the ready-made players we get from other places". Edited 23 June, 2011 by The9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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