How Guardiola is giving Manchester City Young Players a Chance

There is a Narrative Around Guardiola That he Ignores Youth

There have been echoes of criticism for Manchester City in the coverage of Jadon Sancho by the media, alleging that Pep Guardiola has not given youth development a chance. The story implies that Guardiola is a chequebook manager who signs complete players over youth, so stifles his youth development by blocking their path to the first team.

The problem with the narrative is it struggles to cope with the facts. At Barcelona, it is well documented that Guardiola worked initially with the Youth team at La Masia, before becoming the manager of Barcelona B where he developed and introduced many young players to his team. Following his promotion to manager of Barcelona he took several of these players with him and crucially built his all conquering side around them.

At Bayern Munich he integrated and developed some youthful prospects – notably Joshua Kimmich, along these were young players who had experience already of the first team. Guardiola’s legacy was to coach these players to improve them and when he left Bayern, the team were in rude health.

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Manchester City have over recent seasons invested vast sums of money in the creation of the City Football Academy. A facility designed to bring the most out of the young players at the football club. This pursuit of excellence is the defining strategy of the Club and this ensured Manchester City hunted down and secured the services of Guardiola as manager. That way he could realise the strategy.

Once at Manchester City Guardiola set about reducing the age of the squad he had inherited. He signed exclusively young players with the potential for greatness. He supplemented this by adding the most exciting prospects from the youth team to the first team set up. Initially this involved the promotion of Jadon Sancho, Phil Foden and Brahim Diaz. This group has been added to over time and regularly now members of the youth team are promoted to take part in first team training.

This approach allows the team to develop consistent coaching styles and tactical approaches across their full squad, making integration and development of players as central. It also allows young players to see a path to the first team which is based on delivering excellence in training. So what have these clear tactical and strategic approaches delivered to Manchester City? Is it true that Guardiola cares little for youth development?

Of course it should also be said that Guardiola, like any manager at a top club, is judged by results on the pitch, not by how many fantastic young players they have worked with. The pressure to achieve results will always make the lure of signing complete players pretty strong. Coaches who have the financial ability to recruit anyone but choose to develop players usually do so for particular reasons. Having a clearly defined playing style and having the ability to school young players in this is one of those reasons.

Well, Manchester City under Guardiola have the most young players who have appeared on the pitch this season amongst any of the clubs in the top 6. That is a statistic which will be a surprise given the jibes in the media about Guardiola not favouring youth.

Another fact which may be a surprise is that 8 of the Manchester City first team would qualify for Young Player of year as they are under 23. That is a squad significantly weighted towards youth and providing opportunities for young players on the pitch.

So contrary to some of the media stories, Guardiola is committed to developing youth players as part of his system at Manchester City. Jadon Sancho is used to justify this narrative against Guardiola but Sancho chose to leave against the wishes of Guardiola and the club. If he had stayed at Manchester City I have no doubt that the purchase of Riyad Mahrez would not have been sanctioned.

Right now Phil Foden stands at the gateway to the first team. He has looked assured and not out of place every game he has played. Guardiola is easing him into a world beating side where he has to displace players of the quality of Bernardo and David Silva. The ultimate yard stick with which to judge Guardiola’s youth legacy at Manchester City will be in the career of Foden over the next few years.