Manchester City's youngsters have had an excellent year but are still waiting to crown their performances with some glory
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MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 23: Oliver Whatmuff and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey of Manchester City during the UEFA Youth League group stage match between Manchester City and Sparta Praha at Joie Stadium on October 23, 2024 in Manchester, England. (Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 23: Oliver Whatmuff and Jahmai Simpson-Pusey of Manchester City during the UEFA Youth League group stage match between Manchester City and Sparta Praha at Joie Stadium on October 23, 2024 in Manchester, England. (Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)
Jahmai Simpson-Pusey and Oliver Whatmuff
Manchester City's youngsters have one game remaining to try and end their 2024/25 campaign with a trophy. After Pep Guardiola and his players fell short at Wembley, the Under-21s have the home comfort of the Joie Stadium as they look to win the Under-21 league a year after nearly finishing bottom of it.
For the first team, it was FA Cup in terms of trophies. They had lifted the Community Shield at the beginning of the campaign but had fallen well short in their major goals of the Premier League and the Champions League.
In the academy, it has been a different story. The Under-18s and Under-21s were the best teams in the league format of their competition and they have gone deep in everything they have played in, only for silverware to elude them still.
The Under-18s nearly retained the FA Youth Cup that they won last year, only to be beaten by Aston Villa at Villa Park in the final earlier this month. On Saturday, Villa defeated them again at the same stadium to win the Under-18 Division as their excellent campaign came to an end without a trophy lift.
The Under-19s went further in the UEFA Youth League than any City team since 2018, only to concede a last-minute goal at AZ Alkmaar in the quarter-finals.
That just leaves the Under-21s, who are in the play-off final of their league against Southampton after battling their way through the play-offs. Ben Wilkinson's side topped the league standings and feel like they have already won something, but were scared in each of the knockout rounds against Liverpool, Arsenal and United before prevailing to come through.
"Because the league is split up, I feel like we've won the first part of the league but in our heads it's not over because we're still in the knockouts," defender Jahmai Simpson-Pusey told the Manchester Evening News. "Knockout football is cut-throat.
"All the games have been tough, especially because in two of the games we've been down by a goal or two have managed to come back. We just have to be on point a bit more for this final."
The constant discussion in academy football is how much wining trophies matters, with the bigger goal being developing players to feed first teams. That is fine, although at City winning trophies is part of that and playing that down would send the wrong message to their players ahead of the game.
"It is important," said Wilkinson. "Development is a massive part of our role but the closer you get to the first team you also want to create a winning mentality.
"The boys are competitive, we're competitive as staff so we'd be lying if we said we didn't want to win the game and it would give the players the feeling and impact that they deserve to go and win it.
"If you lose, it's very hard in the moment for them to take the positive out of a long hard season even if we as staff can step back and look at it. We want to win the game. we're lucky with this group that they've experienced a lot of knockout football.
"Every game has been a knockout for the last two months, and over the years we've had finals where they have had this occasion up to five times in the last few years. We're in a good place in terms of understanding what the game will look like and what has been pleasing is that we've found a way more often than not to get through these knockout games.
"That has helped us in terms of we've got better with concentration and focus and attention to detail on all the stuff that you don't see and put us in a good position to prepare for this game."
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