Futbol Chronicles: Manchester City Can Emulate West Ham's Youth Success

One area that English upstarts Manchester City can look at to develop a solid long term football brand, is youth development. The club can look no further than to East London's West Ham United. 

West Ham United are considered the best club in England to have produced top class talent with the likes of the following players: Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Bobby Moore, Frank Lampard Jr, Geoff Hurst, Trevor Brooking, Paul Ince, Michael Carrick, Glen Johnson, and recent academy grad Josh Payne.

The new owners and managers at the Eastlands would do themselves and the fledgling club a tremendous favor by investing heavily in youth development, as part of major plan to add talent to the club.

Investing in younger talent for the future can, and has, proved to provide a club with longer terms of stability and competitiveness for seasons, and also helps clubs in terms of scaling back large sums of transfer investment without having to worry about the excuse of losing out on a potential player purchase. 

Michael Johnson, Daniel Sturridge, Chad Evans, and Joe Hart are recent grads of Manchester City's successful academy system, but one would point that West Ham have shown more than any other club in being consistent in developing talent on a continual basis.

Manchester City may have the money, but they don't have the prestige of Manchester United or the history of a Liverpool or even a West Ham.

Youth development would provide a club and excellent source of talent but also a bridge to where history and culture can be remade.

Man City would be wise to invest more resources into their academy and also wise enough to not let young stars such Sturridge sign on to another team.

Manchester United are a classic example of a club that prolonged its dominance of the Premiership with an emphasis on youth development with the likes of David Beckham, Phil and Garry Neville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, and recent grad Fraizer Campbell all coming through the ranks and establishing themselves as stars of the game.

Time will tell if Manchester City can emulate the successes of Manchester and West Ham when it comes to bringing out the best of the future, but only time and development will make that success possible.