Our youth academy is thriving with talent. Reece Oxford, a 17-year-old with a brain and football ability of a seasoned pro. Reece Burke, a natural leader at 19 and claiming Bradford City’s Player of the Year award whilst on loan last season.There are also players such as Cullen, Browne, Howes, Hendrie and Page who have huge potential. This team also won the FA youth cup, a game that I witnessed at Upton Park.
Then you have talents who are on the cusp of a first-team breakthrough. Josh Cullen who, like Burke, enjoyed a great spell on loan at Bradford. Stephen Hendrie hopes to continue his development at Blackburn next season on loan, and the likes of Marcus Browne, Lewis Page, Djair Parfitt-Williams and Sam Howes are all knocking on Slaven Bilic’s door for minutes in the first-team and were all part of the Hammers’ U21 Cup success last season.
We now another young buck looks set to join the Academy of Football to further his footballing career.
We are the favourites to sign exciting Manchester City & England U17 striker Tyrese Campbell. This is no ordinary player. He is the son of former Arsenal player Kevin Campbell and has scored 97 (that’s right, 97) goals in the last two seasons in the City academy ranks.
The 16-year-old turned down a new scholarship deal at the Etihad because he hasn’t got faith in incoming manager Pep Guardiola to blood academy products in the first-team. Guardiola will be handed millions to revamp his City squad and academy stars like Campbell feel opportunities will be hard to come by in the coming years.
Arsenal and Everton are both keen on signing Campbell as well – two clubs his father Kevin players for in his career and two clubs who have strong youth set-ups. The question I would like to ask though is why choose us over other clubs? The answer is clear. Martin Samuelsen.
Martin Samuelsen followed the same route a year ago – leaving the Manchester City academy to sign a deal with West Ham.
He couldn’t progress and get his chance in the Man City set up and opted to further his career in East London and it was the best career decision he could have made.
Since then he has trained with the senior team and scored on his debut in a pre-season friendly, made his competitive debut against Birkirkara in the Europa league qualifier, gone on loan to Peterborough making his football league debut and impressed, scoring his first senior goal, played against Premier League opposition in the FA Cup, won the U21 Cup and made his full debut for Norway. Would he have achieved all of this by staying at Manchester City? Probably not.
We have also welcomed highly rated prospects Toni Martinez from Valencia and Domingos Quina from Chelsea who want to follow in Samuelsen’s footsteps and break into the first-team. This shows that our academy is once again highly rated across not just the UK, but also Europe and the world. I wouldn’t be surprised to see us pinching a few more talented players from other academies in the near future.
