ENGLAND vs LITHUANIA U21

[Dubaimancityfan]

Just happened across this match on Al Jazirah Sport (these guys show everything !) Its 0-0 at half time.
What struck me was that there are no City players in Stuart Pearce's side.
We used to have many regulars: Hart, Nedum, Micah, MJ and Sturridge (he's playing today).

The full squad list is below and I don't see any City players even in the subs !!
What does this say about the up and coming batch from the City youth system. Obviously no bright English prospects !

England
1 Frank Fielding, 2 Kyle Walker, 3 Ryan Bertrand, 4 Michael Mancienne (C), 5 Chris Smalling, 6 Phil Jones, 7 Tom Cleverley, 8 Jordan Henderson, 9 Danny Welbeck, 10 Daniel Sturridge, 11 Danny Rose
Substitutes 12 Martin Kelly, 13 Alex Smithies, 14 Marc Abrighton, 15 Jack Cork, 16 Jack Wilshere, 17 Fabrice Muamba, 18 Nathan Delfouneso.

P.S. Its a slow night until the senior Internationals start later on !!

[HeyMark]

We're in the transitional period where our youngish players have moved into the senior squad and our really young players arent quite ready for the u21's

[ronk]

What does this say about the up and coming batch from the City youth system. Obviously no bright English prospects !

Might say something about the quality of the England U21s too. Sturridge should be counted. There was a bit of a generation that didn't really make the cut (this far) after the main academy crop but that's understandable. It's the nature of age grade football that a crop of good players push out the slightly older ones and delay the better of the younger ones from breaking through.

There are some decent players in Mee, Clayton, Ball etc. it just wasn't to be with so much change going on. Hard for an inexperienced teen to get a game when we have a multi-million pound buy who needs playing time too.

There has also been a bit of a shift in the academy makeup so there are a few more non-English in there: Weiss, Boyata, Ibrahim, Guidetti, Cunningham. In fairness, it's not a bad bunch.

[Ted Hughes]

England U21's are mostly a pile of rag infested shite. Smalling is well below the standard of Boyata for example (who's a year younger) Cleverley is a 2nd rate version of Weiss (who's a year younger). Wellbeck got motm for scoring two out of about 10 chances! Sturridge is a class above him tbf but if more than 2 of those lot play for the full England team, it's fucked.

Albrighton was the dogs bollox when he came on. Superb delivery, tricky, intelligent. Hard to tell for sure if he'll keep progressing but looks like another AJ in the making. One to keep an eye on.