Manchester City academy are looking to rebuild after losing most of their important players from last season.
After losing your top scorer, top assister, Player of the Year and captain, what you really don't want to happen is to lose your first game of the season 5-0 at home.
The new-look Premier League 2 has been criticised for its complicated schedule, with the top 16 teams of a 26-team league going into a one-off play-off competition at the end of the season to determine a winner. Along with the UEFA Youth League and EFL Trophy, City are hoping to improve their shaky record in knockout ties.In recent years, the academy has done well enough in the respective group stages of the cup competitions but struggled when it has come to the knockout ties.
This season would look to be the most difficult year to break those ducks, especially with all the high-profile exits of the likes of Carlos Borges, Shea Charles, Dire Mebude and Oscar Bobb. The new squad is inexperienced and took one point from their opening three games. A 5-0 loss to Tottenham, 2-1 defeat at Fulham and 4-4 draw against Aston Villa summed up the instability that comes with such transition.
With Grimsby losing their second of three Trophy games against favourites Barnsley, City are in a good position to qualify - especially if they can get a result against Bradford. In the Youth League, the senior team have done the youngsters a favour courtesy of their favourable Champions League group.
"The consequence of the way the [Premier League 2] format is done is that we'll get more exposure for that element of knockout football," the head coach said. "The EFL Trophy will be even harder from my experience. We're really putting our players into the most difficult situations at the moment and it will give us a gauge of where they're at. We can really go back to the drawing board and show them how much improvement we have to do and then do that work.
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