Manchester City News 24/7Writer: Tom CTID 
Date:Monday May 31 2010
Time: 9:37AM
UK time is: 06:33:54
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We Should Adopt The Barcelona Approach
Tom CTID sent Vital Manchester City the following.
Summer time is finally here and with it comes three months of transfer rumours. I like all City fans enjoy this period because we dominate the back pages of the newspapers linked with every Tom, Dick and Harry and gives us the sense of excitement. As much as I enjoy being linked with the likes of Dzecko, Higuain, Gago and Ibrahimovic, it disappoints me to see some of our academy players being linked with moves away, such as Onouha, Ireland and Richards.
I know this will have a split opinion. For example a lot of people would be happy to see Richards go as they deem him overrated but I'm not one of those people. Out of our current squad the players I'd be happy to sacrifice the following: Toure, Garrido, Petrov, Santa Cruz and Adebayor, plus the various first team players who are out on loan. That would leave us with a core squad of home grown players plus the big money signings.
This is the approach Barcelona take, and it hasn't done them any harm. The team that won them all six trophies they were playing for last year had a spine of academy players with a couple of expensive full backs and a striker. We have the potential to be as good as Barcelona, and if you compare the two teams there is reason to believe that currently we both share the same philosophy. Still I can't help feeling that this philosophy will be gone by the end of August.
If, as expected, we do sacrifice some of our home grown players, I just hope we don't regret it in the long term. Barcelona have realised that they lost Pique and Fabregas to early and have had to buy Pique back for £8m and looking at upwards of £50m to regain Fabregas.
Imagine seeing a team containing Richards, Onouha, Hart, SWP, Ireland and Nimley climbing the steps of Wembley or parading round the City of Manchester Stadium with a trophy. Barcelona fans have seen this over and over. They can sit there and see Valdes, Puyol, Pique, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Messi, Pedro and Bojan parade around the Nou Camp pitch time after time with gold around their necks.
So MCFC, please bare this thought in mind as nothing would make me prouder to be a City fan than to see our club lift a trophy with a team containing more academy players than not.
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Your Comments
After such a torrid stop start season for Adebayor, he stll managed 14 goals in 25 games. Why on earth would you release him?
thecamelsfoot
I totally agree with the sentiment of having a core of home grown players but with one proviso.....they have to be good enough, otherwise we will continue to win nothing. In this regard I think some of our home grown players are good enough and others are not. Hart, SWP,Onouha and Ireland are at least squad players. Nimely I profess to not knowing enough about him and dear Micah Richards, much as I would love him to succeed is vastly overarted and if we could get £6million for him, I would regard this as great business. The fact that Capello has never even tried him out says it all really and judged purely on the quality of his performances this season, he is very average with poor positional play, poor football intelligence, poor distribution and someone who does not learn. One example he gave a penalty away to Everton by grabbing Saha's shirt - two or three weeks later he was doing the same thing but this time got away with it. So yes lets have a core of home grown talent - the more the better - with the proviso that they do have to pass the quality test based on performance.
Wswilly3
yes you should.
kingDROG
'We have the potential to be as good as Barcelona, and if you compare the two teams there is reason to believe that currently we both share the same philosophy' Dream on same potential as barcelona no chance lads. And i dont see how you share the same philosophy, do you mean you want to? most of their best players have came through the academy but you only have Onuoha, ricahrds, johnson, vidal, weiss, swp, but they probably wont feature alot next season so thers a big difference in having the same philosophy as you will go and spend money on a new team this summer.
I am a Villan
I am a Villian - what about Ireland, Nimley, Boyata and Cunningham? Do they not count. There is and always has been a big emphasis on producing quality at City's Academy and Sheikh Mansour acknowledged as much in his letter to the City fans after the takeover, so I see no reason for this to change.
Bluedub
Good article Tom, I agree with the sentiment but like Willy alludes to, some of the Academy lads just won't make the grade and will be moved on. We now have the ability to attract the worlds best talent at a young age much like Barca have, so the level of player we produce should improve.
Bluedub
Bluedub you can keep the list coming, they wont get into your first team thats why ireland wants to leave, my point is that barcelona's best players are from the academt were as yours have just been brought and you wil continue to do that until the arabs decide to leave and leave you in a mess.
I am a Villan
How do you know in 5-10 years time that City's best players won't be Academy graduates? Have you done any research on ADUG? Do you know anything about them? I only ask because of your belief that they will leave City in a "mess".
Bluedub
My opinion is my opinion, and i no your academy players wont be world class, they might be at another club but not yours it will always be spend spend spend
I am a Villan
i am a villian, its not about your opinion being your opinion, we all know that. he's asking what makes you so convinced our owners will just up and leave like you're suggesting. that is what you probably wish will happen to city but thats just what it is, wishful thinking. if you have any tangible reason to believe what you're suggesting might actually happen please enlighten us otherwise just ***** off with your blind anti-cityness
me_innit
It probably is what i want to happen yeah, but good things always come to an end and i can see it ending bad for city.
I am a Villan
A thought provoking article. What can't be overlooked however how difficult it would be to offload the likes of Toure and Crocky due to their massive wages.
Johnny Baguette
I Am A Villan, how long before Randy gets p****d off with the fans wanting him to buy players when he quite obviously feels like he's spent enough? The guy will soon sell up (or attempt to!). As for it ending badly for us..... do some digging and see our owners long term plans, some of which are already afoot. Jealousy gets you nowhere. PS, I see you're yet to enlighten us......
RobsonGreensleeves
I think it is obvious that Clubs have to compete earlier to get the young talent to their clubs because when Plantini's enforced plans take a grip, this is what is going to save clubs millions, by playing the those young players you buy now and play later.
Buzz Lightyear
Opinions are like R-soles eh Iam?
fifthcolumnblue
RobsonGreensleeves, Randy has said he'll make funds available this summer (or so I read that he has). We do need to buy players, we have a small squad with a starting 11 that starts pretty much every game, Randy Lerner will know this.
But our academy is brilliant, one of the best for producing young talent.
You just buy in your players for ridiculous sums of money and, as comments from fans on this thread have shown, want rid of them when they turn out to be actually not that good.
More money than sense.
Callum_ws
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