Development/Youth Squads 2024/2025 Thread - U18/U21

[Foxdiamond]

13 hours ago, Bluearmyfox28 said:

Is he right or left footed?

Would be great if comfortable using either foot

[Noahfence]

4 hours ago, davieG said:

Our future?

 

How good would it be if next season our squad had a good number of academy lads getting consistent game time? 
 

It’s a perfect chance to change the make up of the squad and such an easy way to get fans back on side

[davieG]

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/leicester-city-cusp-something-great-10218216#comments-wrapper

 

Leicester City on cusp of something great with impressive milestone possible next season
There were seven academy graduates in the squad for the final game of the season, and there's are plenty of options to take that number even higher in the Championship

ByJordan Blackwell
07:00, 31 MAY 2025

With Bade Aluko making his Leicester City debut in the final few minutes of the season, the number of club academy graduates to have played their first Premier League game this campaign rose to five.

Jakub Stolarczyk was handed his first outing at Liverpool last December, the same month Will Alves made a brief appearance before he was loaned to Cardiff. Jeremy Monga and Jake Evans’ opportunities first came in April.

Five homegrown Premier League debutants in one campaign is a strong amount. In City’s nine-season run in the top flight before their previous relegation, there were 12 homegrown debutants, an average of just over one a season.

 

There are caveats. City had a weaker squad this season than in all of those previous nine top-flight campaigns, while their early relegation allowed greater freedom on squad selection. Both factors were key in Ruud van Nistelrooy turning to academy products.

But it still represents a positive and it puts City on the cusp of something great.

The rate at which the club’s academy has produced top-level players has improved considerably over the past 15 years.

Players worth millions have emerged. Ben Chilwell started for the winning team in a Champions League final four years ago. Harvey Barnes and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall have just qualified for Europe’s top competition. City sold the trio for more than £100m combined.

Producing these highly-talented individuals is brilliant, for what they can give City, for the money they can make the club, for the joy it brings fans, and for the kudos.

But there’s room for City to be even more prolific. The task is to produce more and more players capable of holding their own in the Premier League, even if they’re not going to be the subject of £30m transfers.

The ideal is, as van Nistelrooy put it, to have the foundation of the squad built on those who have come up through the ranks, rather than having academy graduates sprinkled throughout the side.

It really feels like City are getting closer to that. It’s hard to imagine this was the season the club’s run of having an academy graduate in every matchday squad ended after five years and 10 months, a streak of 288 games, last October.

Because on the final day of the season, seven of the 20 squad members were academy-trained: Stolarczyk, Aluko, Monga, Evans, Luke Thomas, Kasey McAteer, and Sammy Braybrooke.

There’s not just those seven who could be permanent fixtures in the first-team squad next term. Ben Nelson, as long as he’s not sold, looks on course to be a starter. Will Alves will be in contention. Hamza Choudhury may stick around after his loan at Sheffield United.

The likes of Wanya Marcal and Brandon Cover will return from loan spells too. The likes of Tom Wilson-Brown and Henry Cartwright have been in Premier League matchday squads this season. Louis Page has been starting for England Under-17s this month.

A lot of those are young players and not all of them will be ready, but being in the Championship gives City greater opportunities to show trust in them. The club need to be brave.

Last weekend, there was the perfect chance to start Monga. Yes, Bournemouth are strong on the flanks, and yes, van Nistelrooy was not given many incentives to look to the future because of the lack of talks on his position, but in a dead-rubber like that, the 15-year-old should not have been overlooked for a left-back playing out of position in Victor Kristiansen.

Earlier this year, the CIES Football Observatory published a list of the clubs across England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France that had developed the most big-five league players since 2005.

Fifteen English clubs made the top 100, which included all those that had had at least 26 players graduate and play in the top divisions. There was no place for City on the list.

But they’re now moving into an era where that can change. There was only one Midlands club on the list – Aston Villa – so it’s not that the region’s best kids are being snapped up by every other club.

They have the location and the facilities – and recent success suggests the coaching set-up – to be one of the most prolific producers of top-flight players.

It would be great, and it’s something the club should ultimately strive for, for City to become one of the famed academies in the country, like those at Manchester United, Arsenal, and West Ham.

If they did, it would provide a permanent source of pride for supporters too, and would make them feel more connected with the club.

They look to be on that path and there could be a real milestone next season. There’s potential for City to field a matchday squad where half of the players have come up through their academy. It would be a satisfying moment for everybody associated with the club.

[Claudio Fannieri]

Strange question but anyone know who is squad number 53 as I think he is staying in our hotel on holiday 

[kenny]

7 minutes ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

Strange question but anyone know who is squad number 53 as I think he is staying in our hotel on holiday 

Ewing or Flynn if transfer market is to believed. Neither this season though.

[Claudio Fannieri]

1 minute ago, kenny said:

Ewing or Flynn if transfer market is to believed. Neither this season though.

It looks like it’s this seasons training kit just don’t want to be a complete bellend and fanboy and ask him 😂😂

[WestLothianFox]

14 minutes ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

Strange question but anyone know who is squad number 53 as I think he is staying in our hotel on holiday 

Ben Grist?

[Guest Electric Yetis]

17 minutes ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

Strange question but anyone know who is squad number 53 as I think he is staying in our hotel on holiday 

Grist according to wiki

 

 

Edited 1 June 2025 by Electric Yetis

[Claudio Fannieri]

15 minutes ago, Electric Yetis said:

Grist according to wiki

 

 

Wonderful work 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[Lesta2014]

He’s just been released hasn’t he? 

[Lambert09]

43 minutes ago, Lesta2014 said:

 

3 hours ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

Strange question but anyone know who is squad number 53 as I think he is staying in our hotel on holiday 

 

44 minutes ago, Lesta2014 said:

He’s just been released hasn’t he? 

Great time to get all the tea on the club 

 

I met a youth player who had just left us on holiday once and he wouldn’t shut up about how god awful our academy set up was 

[Claudio Fannieri]

Well it definitely wasn’t Ben Grist as he has just announced signing for Boston. Wonder if they may be from the younger academy groups below the lads playing at PL 2 level. If anyone has a team group photo they can post of this years u18-u21 I may get to the bottom of who it was 😂

[Wasyls Pec Deck]

I see the club are giving updates about the youth sides on social media, perhaps in response to those who’ve kicked off at the lack of coverage they get?

[davieG]

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/inside-king-power-stadium-leicester-10235666

 

ByJordan Blackwell
15:58, 3 JUN 2025Updated16:08, 3 JUN 2025

 

Dyke leaves to join QPR
The club’s released list last week only took in players from the senior and development squads, but there will have been further departures from the under-18s.

That rundown, which is due to be released early next week at the latest as the Premier League’s full retained lists are published, will include midfielder Kaleb Dyke, who is leaving to join QPR.

The 18-year-old midfielder played 19 matches for the club’s under-18s this season, scoring three goals and providing two assists, only missing the final five fixtures, perhaps after it was made clear he would not be offered a deal at City, where he has been since the age of seven.

After a month’s trial, he’s now signed a professional contract at Loftus Road and will join QPR’s development team.

“This is exciting,” Dyke told QPR. “It’s a new opportunity, something I can really dig into, something I can just attack and basically try to make my mark. I have really enjoyed my short time here already. It's been fantastic.”

 

Grist quickly gets new club

Centre-back Ben Grist was one of the eight development squad players to be let go by City, but he has quickly found himself a new home with National League side Boston United.

Grist, who was signed from Grimsby’s academy four years ago, played four games for City’s under-21s this season but then spent the second half of the campaign on loan at seventh-tier Worksop Town, helping them to achieve promotion through the play-offs.

The 20-year-old impressed enough in those few months, winning young player of the year, to get a move to the fifth tier with Boston.

 

City ninth for academy minutes
With the emergence of wonderkids Jeremy Monga and Jake Evans, the former becoming the second-youngest player in Premier League history, and with the potential for a foundation of academy talents in the squad next season, the progress of City’s homegrown contingent has been one of the few positives of late.

But where did they rank in the Premier League this season for minutes given to academy graduates? Research by the Press Association puts City in ninth place with 2,526 minutes.

They didn’t actually include Jakub Stolarczyk in their calculations, the Polish goalkeeper joining City aged 16, but even if they had added in his 900 minutes, the club still would have been ninth, 54 minutes behind Southampton.

Luke Thomas and Kasey McAteer were the two players pulling City’s total upwards, both getting more than 1,000 minutes of Premier League game-time over the season thanks to runs in the team towards the end of the campaign.

At the top of the leader board were title-winners Liverpool, the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Curtis Jones taking them up to 6,922 minutes. Wolves were bottom, not handing a single minute to an academy graduate.

[Lambert09]

getting worried there’s nothing being said about evans signing 

 

I heard some people say they think the monga deal is gentlemanly agreed and he’ll sign it when he turns 16. This would be some excellent news