Training ground plans.

[Ted Hughes]

I bet the players are loving the idea of travelling from leafy suburbs in Cheshire to the Ground every day as opposed to a short hop to Carrington.

This is a worry.. its a distance isnt it. Maybe Kompanys chauffeur service could sort them out ;)

Hopefully they will have some sort of luxury hotel accomodation or appartments on site which players could use?

I guess if they hop on the M60 the opposite way round it will be ok in the mornings but if there is traffic or an accident then.

I travel from North Manc to Alty and its a pain in the ass i cant understand the players being too happy adding an extra hour and a half to training.

Maybe we should buy a Thaksin style military helicopter.

Or perhaps one of those teleportation pods each, like the geezer had in 'The Fly' (& Homer Simpson had so he could get beer from the fridge without leaving the couch).

[Mark (Blue Army)]

I did highlight my sarcasm in the original post but for some reason mark decided to delete that bit.

Im using the app mate and didn't see the sarcasm bit, but I can see it when using my laptop, strange.

[Beanieboy]

I bet the players are loving the idea of travelling from leafy suburbs in Cheshire to the Ground every day as opposed to a short hop to Carrington.

This is a worry.. its a distance isnt it. Maybe Kompanys chauffeur service could sort them out ;)

Hopefully they will have some sort of luxury hotel accomodation or appartments on site which players could use?

I guess if they hop on the M60 the opposite way round it will be ok in the mornings but if there is traffic or an accident then.

I travel from North Manc to Alty and its a pain in the ass i cant understand the players being too happy adding an extra hour and a half to training.

ahwww the poor little lasses!....pay me what they earn, and i'll travel 8 hours a day on top of a full days work and still go to bed laughing my cunt off.
*edit to add: looks great.

[lets all have a disco]

I bet the players are loving the idea of travelling from leafy suburbs in Cheshire to the Ground every day as opposed to a short hop to Carrington.

This is a worry.. its a distance isnt it. Maybe Kompanys chauffeur service could sort them out ;)

Hopefully they will have some sort of luxury hotel accomodation or appartments on site which players could use?

I guess if they hop on the M60 the opposite way round it will be ok in the mornings but if there is traffic or an accident then.

I travel from North Manc to Alty and its a pain in the ass i cant understand the players being too happy adding an extra hour and a half to training.

ahwww the poor little lasses!....pay me what they earn, and i'll travel 8 hours a day on top of a full days work and still go to bed laughing my cunt off.
*edit to add: looks great.

These are pampered little darlings though mate,like you said pay me what they earn and id walk over hot coals all the way and then train but i can see some of our motley crew being in a right sulk driving through Ashton at 8.15 am.

[Ted Hughes]

Manchester City's £100m plan to be the Barcelona of the Premier League

Brian Marwood wants the 80-acre Etihad Campus to produce homegrown players like the Spanish club's famed academy


Andy Hunter guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 September 2011 22.31 BST

They are planning more calculated risks in east Manchester today. Where once new Labour proposed to meet the area's regeneration needs with a Super Casino, Manchester City envisage the solution to sustained success in the Premier League and Champions League without recourse to the riches of Abu Dhabi in every transfer window. "This will be the most important investment this club has ever made," City's chief football operations officer, Brian Marwood, said.

Marwood was describing City's proposed youth development and first-team training centre, part of the stunning Etihad Campus facility for which, after three years' research and six weeks of public consultation, the planning application was submitted on Monday. The scale and attention to detail are astounding. Eighty acres of brown field land opposite the Etihad Stadium have been earmarked for a project that will cost at least £100m and, City hope, deliver a production line of homegrown talent able to compete in the Champions League and a convincing riposte to accusations of paying lip-service to Uefa's financial fair play rules.

"It is part of our 10-year strategy for long-term, sustainable success," said Marwood, sensitive to the criticism that City's 10-year, £400m sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways attracted from Arsène Wenger and Liverpool, among others, and which Uefa has pledged to scrutinise.

"Everyone has seen we have accelerated the recruitment process in terms of where the first team is now, which is three years into the owner's tenure of this football club. We are fully aware of the commitment that we face but, equally, we talk about sustainability and that [paying large transfer fees] can't be sustained, so we have to develop within. That is something that is paramount to the future of the club. Financial fair play gets talked about every week now, and everyone is looking to Manchester City to see whether we are going to conform to that. This is an element that will help us achieve the criteria people are looking at."

City's project team visited 30 elite sports development centres in nine countries across four continents in the course of their research. The end result is a proposed home for 400 young players to train alongside the senior squad, 15 full-size pitches, on-site sleeping accommodation for 40 youngsters plus 32 members of the first team, a rehab centre and a 7,000-capacity stadium for youth-team games. The stadium is situated between the training hub and the Etihad Stadium so as to motivate academy players towards fulfilling their potential. The first-team training pitches will have different grass that match the varying types used across the Premier League. Whatever type City are playing on that weekend will dictate where the squad trains during the week.

The grand tour included the Australian Institute of Sport, the LA Lakers, the Nike laboratories in Oregon, the New York Giants and Barcelona. "They are the benchmark for developing young talent," said Marwood of the Spanish champions. "You talk about the DNA, the philosophy and the culture, and it is there at every level in terms of how they play.

"Our under-19s played against them last week. You could close your eyes and see a young Iniesta or a young Xavi and that is something on which we need to work very hard here. What the coaching team has tried to do is develop a philosophy but also a consistency in terms of the way we play at every level right up to the first team. In the last Champions League final Barcelona had eight players that were home-grown, which is an incredible statistic. They have their youth stadium adjacent to the Camp Nou, and they also have their training complex close by as well. It gives players that aspiration and inspiration to go from the academy all the way through.

"We have a proud history of bringing through players from our academy and that is something we want to enhance. What we have tried to do at every level is make it better, and develop it in a different way. We are trying to bring through young players that can play in the Champions League. That is what we are aiming for."

A decision on City's planning application is expected in late December, with construction expected to take three to four years. City have purchased most of the 80-acre site but negotiations remain ongoing over the relocation of several businesses, while the club have allocated 5.5 acres for community facilities, including a sixth-form college, and will help fund a new swimming pool.

Patrick Vieira, football development executive at City, insists the benefits will be widespread. "I don't think England produces enough talent, certainly in relation to the number of people who love the game and play football," he said. "I don't know why, maybe it is the facilities, but it is disappointing England has not produced more. This football club wants to give people the opportunity to play for the first team and for the national team."

Marwood believes the facilities will ensure the next Ryan Giggs has no reason to leave City's academy for Manchester United. He also claimed another loss to City was Garry Cook, the former chief executive who was forced to resign over an email he sent to Marwood ridiculing Nedum Onuoha's mother's cancer, and had overseen the Etihad Campus proposals.

"It's not a good time to lose your chief executive but we are all moving on," he said. "As the chairman said last week Garry has done a tremendous amount for this football club in the three years he was chief executive and he will always be welcome at this club. I'm personally saddened because I think everyone is aware of the relationship I had with him but we have to move on. He was a big player in this project."

[john@staustell]

You have to wonder though, will it really build us a team in the future?.

How many of the top teams actually bring youth players tthrough to the top level.

Excluding the scums success bringing rooney through the youth system i can't think of any others in the prem i would consider worth the effort. <<<<Sarcasm.

Good points mate. Something tells me a lot of this smoke and mirrors, kings new clothes etc, in other words Platini-inspired bullshit.

But it looks good. If you've got it, flaunt it! Plus the more investment that piles into the whole organisation the better.

[hyper]

Looking forward to seeing how the press can turn this into another "City ruining football" piece - seems a tall order at the moment but I'm sure they'll manage it.

EDIT: It's already been sorted by one of the helpful chaps on R*dcafe, quote "another opportunity to fall within the fair play rules. I mean, developing hundreds of players? Selling the vast majority for a profit should give them a healthy return on their investment"

[thegoatfeeder]

I personally think this is great, if we can develop a culture of bringing in the best local and international kids, give them the best training and chance for success and then supplement that with 1 or 2 paid signings I can't think of a better way of running a football club.

On top of that is what it will bring to the local community and how it will help East Manchester, it really is brilliant.

[nickson71]

Plans are looking good

I thought that one of the points of having a top tire academy and that's what we are going to build also removes to 90 minute rule so we can bring on kids of any age from all over the country not just limited to anywhere that you make to training within 90 mins?

could be wrong though

[CityGer]

You have to wonder though, will it really build us a team in the future?.

How many of the top teams actually bring youth players tthrough to the top level.

Excluding the scums success bringing rooney through the youth system i can't think of any others in the prem i would consider worth the effort. <<<<Sarcasm.

Good points mate. Something tells me a lot of this smoke and mirrors, kings new clothes etc, in other words Platini-inspired bullshit.
But it looks good. If you've got it, flaunt it! Plus the more investment that piles into the whole organisation the better.

Are you wumming?

[ashton287]

Anyway it might seem like it but im not actually against the idea. I just wonder if we will ever see our money back.

But as it doesnt do us any harm in the ffp rules, probably might even make us money when a player isnt quite good enough for us but we can sell them on so that will be a few million in the plus column each time and messi's must come from somewhere so we could get lucky.

Only real worry is if we don't produce anyone good enough after a few years and countless millions invested there could be huge amounts of pressure to get one of the not quite good enough products into the starting 11 regardless.

[twosips]

I think the idea of this complex is fantastic.

It's not just about attracting local kids and making them great, far from it. It's pretty obvious that we're going to use these facilities as a key argument to attract other individuals. We'll use it as a reason to attract the best coaches, and instead of snapping up some talented kid from ardwick, we'll use this new complex, combined with the presence of world stars such as Aguero etc to convince the next Messi to sign for City at the age of 14 or something, instead of signing somewhere else.

There are a few academies in the world that seem to have an aura about them - young players flock to join them. They're the holy grail of footballing education. Barca's is one, Ajax another, and for years in England Arsenal's was the best...etc etc

As it stands, ours is not. It's not world famous. We have to ensure that if the next Fabregas is gonna arrive in England he's gonna be arriving at City, not United or Arsenal. These developments will ensure that. It's brilliant. Even if we produce one champions league player a year, or even every two years, then we've saved ourselves £20m a season potentially. I see no reason why we can't bring a few through though. Look at Cleverly and Welbeck - as much as its easy to hate them, no one would have predicted they would have done so well this year so far. It's cos they're playing with better players. If we can get five players of their quality, which is very do-able, and intelligently integrate a couple of them into a winning team then they'll blend in easily.

It'll work. I'm certain. And i'm excited.

[twosips]

Also, we don't need to bring through a first XI of youngsters every year. Even Barca can't manage that.

They just bring through a new player every year and nurture them correctly. This year its Thiago, last year it was Pedro, the year before Busquets....and Messi broke through before then, and Xavi and Iniesta a few years earlier. It's bringing them slowly through and making them feel part of the team that helps. We can do that.

[lets all have a disco]

This is what we want in future.

What Bacon said about Cleverley.

He was part of Bradford City's youth set up and the next summer he joined Rags as a 12-year-old trainee in July 2003 (Bacon said: "We know all about Cleverley as he's been with us a long time, since he was 12. You get to know their character and temperament).

[Ted Hughes]

You have to wonder though, will it really build us a team in the future?.

How many of the top teams actually bring youth players tthrough to the top level.

Excluding the scums success bringing rooney through the youth system i can't think of any others in the prem i would consider worth the effort. <<<<Sarcasm.

Good points mate. Something tells me a lot of this smoke and mirrors, kings new clothes etc, in other words Platini-inspired bullshit.

But it looks good. If you've got it, flaunt it! Plus the more investment that piles into the whole organisation the better.

It's not smoke & mirrors at all, it's exactly what they've said it is; the biggest part of the plan/project. One of the 1st things Khaldoon did when he arrived at City was spend ages looking at the make up of the academy. He then set about changing it. People were too obsessed with using it as a stick to beat Hughes with, to actually notice what was goiing on; they'd decided it wasn't good enough & started work on fixing it.

Do you honestly think they'd rather be pumping £200 million per year into the team on transfers when they could create their own players ? This precedes Platini by a long way, not just at City but at FA level. This was the kind of thing Howard Wilkinson (& Paul Power) envisaged when they went round Europe investigating how others did their coaching & why England were so far behind. The academies set up here are not up to scratch with what was called for all those years ago & the pathetic standard of our young players in this country in recent years is the result of that.

This is City's priority.

[Blue in North London]

Can someone confirm:

* Will this make us the only Grade 1 rated academy in the UK?
* If we are awarded Grade 1 status, does this mean we can train the youngsters for more hours than we are currently allowed?

[Mark (Blue Army)]

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[youtube]zs-dcm1zE98&feature=relmfu[/youtube]

[paulmclaren]

And people say the mighty sheik is not going to be at city in the long run-dream on.
Amazing project.