According to reports, Manchester City want to tap up all the best that English talent has to offer… in the realms of football players of course. Whether they plan to play them regularly is anyone’s guess. I suppose they do plan to do so if they are eventually as good or better than David Silva and co, but will those players they purchase be ready after much time that will inevitably have been spent in the reserves, or in the proposed Under-18 and Under-21 leagues? I’m leaning heavily towards an answer of ‘no.’
These young players such as Jack Rodwell and (maybe) Scott Sinclair, would arguably be far better off staying at the clubs where they made their name. Everton, who are the most consistent team outside of the traditional top six, and Swansea City, one of the most exciting additions to the Premier League in years, are not to be sniffed at. They are great clubs who can provide a tremendous education for young players.
Rodwell is 21 and has made 85 appearances for the Toffees while 23 year old Sinclair has only three full seasons under his belt, Both would surely have a better chance of succeeding elsewhere or at those aforementioned clubs than they would at City. It should be obvious to everyone that these two youngsters and potentially many others will merely be making up the numbers in Roberto Mancini’s list of players.
It would probably be more advantageous for them to go on loan from to lower division ones as David Beckham and Jermaine Defoe did in their teens. Manchester United’s Beckham had played a handful of first team games up to the point when he was loaned out to Preston North End in early 1995, but with the likes of Andrei Kanchelskis in his way, Alex Ferguson sent him to Lancashire where he would gain regular competitive first team football rather than languish in the reserves. The reserves are useful for young players, but it is often a place that is used for players recovering from injury to regain full fitness as opposed to the cut, thrust and pace of lower league football. Beckham was brought back once Kanchelskis sustained an injury in the last weeks leading up to the end of that season otherwise he may very well have stayed at Preston for longer.
Click HERE to head to PAGE TWO…
Says the FOOL
By that logic, no young player should ever try to play for a “big” club – patent nonsense.
Did you write an article on the same lines about Man United buying Chris Smalling and Phil Jones last season?
This season they’ve bought that kid from Crewe – he’s never going to get a game is he?
This is the gamble both players and clubs take on young talent, sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.
Mario Balotelli is 21, and he was a gamble – are you suggesting he should pack his bags and go and play for Norwich? Joe Hart off to West Ham?
Of course not.
Stop this City bashing and concentrate on the positives of having a strong English presence at the Premiership Champions, soon to be Champions of Europe.
Well said Melon Man! Also, didn’t Jack Rodwell play a full 90 minutes in his first game? I think so, so this post has been proven to be a load of garbage already!
I wrote this on Friday, so it may be ‘a load of garbage’ as you say. Let’s see how many games he plays when Barry’s back. I think he would have been better off having another year or two at Everton. He’ll play a bit for City this season, but not as much as he would’ve done for the Toffees.
Balotelli wasn’t wanted at Inter Milan so he had to move somewhere to get first team football plus he and Mancini knew each other beforehand whilst Hart and Nick Powell were with Shrewsbury Town and Crewe Alexander respectively. Bit of a step down from Everton and Swansea wouldn’t you say?
Could have sworn I saw young Jack Rodwell lining up next to Yaya Toure, Silva, Nasri, Aguero, Dzeko, Balotelli etc last Sunday for the Champions. Perhaps I imagined it.
But fair enough, what can he learn from them, or Mancini, when he could have gone elsewhere & be playing next to Cattermole or Super Scotty Parker, or perhaps working for Pulis or Warnock ?
Is David Batty still playing ? There would be a role model.
you talking bollox these two players will learn a lot from the more established players and city are fighting on all fronts for silverware so its going to be a squad with quality player in it.
If they do well when they get there chance they will stay in the team its all up to them…..
stop slagging city off as though they are ruining footballers careers, if anything its the opposite
so what you are saying is that you shouldn’t sign for the Champions of England? lol
Melon man, your proper deluded and a true northern idiot!!! Rodwell and Sinclair will end like Johnson, Man City are really doing English football a favour by bringing in these youngsters and leaving on the City heap pile…
Utter crap from a typical newbie. All sides have been trying to buy Englsih players for severasl years, that’s why they cost so much when compared to foreign players. “Traditional top six” ????? Bollocks. City have been there for two years, Spurs for three, hardly traditional. City were third division material only a decadeago…some tradition!!! You totally forget the fact that most footballers are fairly stupied but very greedy. When they have hige sums of money offered to them loylaty goes out of the window: Lescott, RVP, Nasri, Adeybayor, Barry, Toure x 2, Silva, Ballotelli, Tevez, Cole, Torres…the list goes on and on, all followed thier wallets. Career mistakes be damned I’m earning millions!!!! WHO CAN BLAMES THEM WHEN PRATS LIKE YOU CONTINUALLY MASSAGE THEIR INFLATED EGO AND REINFORCE THEIR LUDICROUS SELF IMOPORTANCE AND RIDICULOUSLY HIGH SELF OPINIONS. I suspect you are a post 1990 football “fan” who has no connection with any club and doesnt’t understand loyalty, community belonging and tradition. You and your ilk have taken our national sport and turned it into a parody of itself populated by avaricious whining prima donnas, arrogance at every level, weak officials, corrupt executives, rotten agents, armchair critics, disloyal traitors and prawn sandwich munching twats who have drained the atmosphere from nearlly all of our stadia. FUCK OFF BACK TO HENLY.
Oh, Johnny wonny, there’s no need to shout! I suppose I am a ‘post 1990 football ”fan”’ as you say. Mind you, I was still a baby in 1990 so that’s probably why. Seeing as you seem to have got the COMPLETE WRONG end of the stick with this article, take a look at Jeff’s comment below. That’ll explain it in SIMPLE terms. Just as well really…
Ricky, your pathetic story aimed at undermining city and their policy of investing and nurturing the best up and coming talent, makes you look like a jealous idiot!! Who do you support by the way??
Up Yours
Blue Moony 🙂
Bloody hilarious.
Sorry, but which teams make up the ‘traditional top six’?
‘Traditional’ might not have been the right word to use. I meant what seems to be BECOMING and what looks like will be a regular top-six for the next few seasons. I mentioned that in reference to me thinking that Rodwell would be better off at Everton for another year or two as they, outside what is currently deemed the current general top-six (City, United, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool – although the latter could be falling out of that consensus soon,)are the most likely to break into it; which they have on numerous times in the past 10 years, but not often enough to be deemed part of it. Although Newcastle might have something to say about that now.
*- consensus soon), numerous occasions*
Seriously Ricky, that’s pretty much unreadable.
I look forward to seeing your next article.
I for one think Ricky is talking a lot of sense – it appears the Man City fans that are not reading in to what he is saying. He is not having a go at Man City – he is saying from an experience perspective, that they would be better off in their current respective clubs….
You and Wiggs would be top of a class that featured all the other people who commented on this article. You actually got the idea of it. Thanks.