The former Manchester United defender thinks City need to take a leaf out of Sir Alex Ferguson’s book when it comes to their youth system.
Ex-Manchester United right-back Gary Neville has given his opinion on Manchester City’s failings this season, which sees the Sky Blues head into the derby tonight 15 points behind their rivals.
Neville thinks City do not place enough emphasis on their young players and that Roberto Mancini needs to give them more of a chance.
“I don’t know why they’ve [City] not created a single youth player in the last five years,” the Sky Sports pundit said to the Independent.
“I’ve seen players in their youth team when they’ve beaten United. You’ve got to create the pathway and at the moment I don’t see that pathway at City, whether the players are good enough or not.”
Neville is referring to the amount of youth players in the Red Devils’ squad compared to that of City, with Tom Cleverley, Rafael da Silva, Jonny Evans, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Danny Welbeck all products of United’s youth system and featured regularly this season.
This is compared to their neighbours across the city, who’s only youngsters to play this campaign are Denis Suarez and Abdul Razak in the Capital One Cup and Marcos Lopes, who has made one substitute appearance.
It has been a disappointing title defence by Man City in 2012/13, as they have barely challenged United all year and lost the last Manchester derby at the Etihad Stadium 1-2.
Manchester United host City tonight at Old Trafford as they look to banish memories of the 1-6 drubbing they received there at the hands of the Premier League champions last season.
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