Surely part of development, at some point at least, is learning how to win and win ugly if needs be. I think this discussion is more relevant lower down the age groups.
What we’ve been really good at, in the past, is giving more time to potential late bloomers (be it physical or due to their excellent mindsets meaning they’ll eventually catch up due to sheer hard work and attitude). I don’t see how this is too different from being more winning focused.
Unfortunately youth football is cut throat and mostly, only the strongest survive.
It might be hard to hear that one of the best parts of our club still needs a lot of improvement but it’s a good sign. We want excellence all over. Wilcox did a great job with City. The current best player in the league would likely be with us right now if it weren’t for Wilcox convincing him to stay at City (Cole Palmer).
We have a great academy and it’s the pearl of our club. But we should have had 4 or 5 players in the England Euros squad and we actually had 2 (Shaw and Mainoo and the former wasn’t even from our academy). Henderson was there and came through our academy after we took him from Carlisle but he isn’t much to shout about.
Looking at the lower age groups of England, City and Chelsea players still dominate.
We’re good but not as good as maybe we want to think.
