Promising former Arsenal centre back Oliver Nicholas has been released by Manchester City, just four months after quitting the Gunners to make the move North.
Liam Brady allowed Nicholas the opportunity to leave after failing to make the break into Steve Bould’s Under 18’s, despite only signing a scholarship deal in the summer. The player became restless at his lack of chances to progress, and opted to switch to Manchester City, who offered him the security of a guaranteed professional contract on his 17th birthday.
Yet the dream move proved to be anything but. Although Ollie featured in a handful of fixtures for the F.A Youth Cup holders, his regular return trips to London put a strain on his commitment to the cause. Subsequently, City decided to cancel Nicholas’ deal, and pay him up to the end of his scholarship.
Arsenal received a small amount of money in compensation for the initial transfer, but following the contract termination, they will lose their rights to any sell on fee.
This latest news comes as a massive surprise, as the leggy centre half is an England Youth International, and one of a crop of exciting British defenders coming through the ranks.
Article By – J.Sanderson
Hi JS are the any good proper wingers coming through from the arsenal under 16. I think the whole arsenal academy lacks genuine good wingers. We got very good Central midfielders, strikers, defenders but we lack width
It goes to prove that just because you played for Arsenal it does not automaticaly mean that you can walk into another acadamy set up and shine.
I heard we got a really good english CB forget the name apparently he captains the under 16.
Another one bites d dust. Why on earth r footballers, young uns 4 that matter, not ready to take their time to blossom?
May be he might come back and beg for Liam Brady’s messy. Also it concerns me that Arsenal’s british talents are inpatient unlike Man Utd’s british talents, it really annoys me bcuz Arsene has repeatedly said that his preferrable model would be 60% british mixed with 40% foreign talents but still many of our talent are inpatient or are unwilling to be squad player like Fletcher, Oshea.
Conor Henderson, whilst an u-18 and reserve player is an excellent winger and you’ll see that whn he returns from injury
Man City do have a tremendous youth set-up…. they are unbeaten at the top of their Academy league and still in the Youth Cup, so it’s no surprise that if Oliver wasn’t going to make it here, he wouldn’t make it there. And to make it worse, Sven had a habit of promoting youth into the first team (giving more space to the reserves and academy, and more incentive), Hughes doesn’t. I read on a City blog that Sven gave 7 members of the City youth, debuts in the First Team. Hughes hasn’t given any yet.
You have got a good winger u16, lad surname Glasgow, seen him and pace electric
bigtimetopbanana said this on March 2, 2009 at 7:45 pm
This can be a misguiding figure though. Sven promoted more youths than most teams do in 3 seasons, at a time when the squad also rapidly expanded from signings. So Sturridge came through, for example, and not only had to contend with the strikers already there (Mpenza, Vassell etc.) but new signings (Benjani, Bojinov, Bianchi). Then add the signings of a team trying to garner success (and just natural summer improvement and progression): Jo, Bellemy, Robinho. If you look at the sides Man City should (this is different to reality in many ways) be competiting with, like say Villa and West Ham, you’ll see that only every couple of years is there a youngster good enough to promote into regular Premiership football – your Ablongahor’s and Sears’. So Sturridge, you could presume, is the pick of the litter. It’s not Hughes’ fault Sven already bought him through the ranks.
Also, the difference between the City Sven inherited and the one Hughes took over are collosal. One was a team that could, quite easily get relegated, the other had players you could argue as being world class on their day (your Petrovs and Elanos). It was much easier to promote a youngster like Sturridge to replace Paul Dickov than to look at your reserves and go ‘Untested Youngster v. Elano, who do I pick?’.
Man City are already starting to become a nuisance to football, and are already losing faith in their youth set-up (as evidenced by the current pimping of players like Onouha and Johnson in the transfer window) but that doesn’t counter balance my original point and while such antics wouldn’t have happened if there wasn’t the big takeover, there still would have been less of an opportunity to promote youngsters like Sven did this season.
[I don’t even know why I’ve just taken time for such a rant; I don’t give a shit about City unless they want to sell us the next Micah Richards.]
Glasgow is a full back. Isnt henderson a playmaker in the middle. I heard hes primarily a Cm but can play on the left. IF so is he fast and his he a good dribbler
Most academies have got proper wingers arsenal dont seem to have them. We play CM on the wings. And its a disadvantage
@ John, All of our teams including our academies team play combination football rather than divided type of game with wingers. I dont mind wingers as long as they also play with their brain as well as instinct [Figo, Pires and Giggs] rather than with just pace going around like headless chicken.
Re: Wingers – Umm… what about freaking Wilshere? Sure when he’s 26 or whatever he might move to the Bergkamp role but he’s going to start his Arsenal 1st XI career taking over Arshavin when he hits the dreaded 30s.
Also, I know he is a first team star but Theo is still a freaking teenager.
wenger get him back!!!
burythehammer said this on March 2, 2009 at 8:46 pm
get you fact right we haven’t been pimping out player like onouha and johnson in the transer window in fact we rejected several offers for both these players
thanks good post.
Just dropping by.Btw, you website have great content!
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“Man City are already starting to become a nuisance to football, and are already losing faith in their youth set-up (as evidenced by the current pimping of players like Onouha and Johnson in the transfer window)”
Change the record – Onouha’s in talks over a new contract and City turned down 8m for Johnson. Ireland and Richards are regulars and City are bending over backwards to make Sturridge the right offer. Shaleum Logan made his first start a couple of weeks ago and Adam Clayton an Vladimir Weiss have been making the bench.
Wingers? Rasmussen?
Ahmad, not to be rude, but how long have you been a Gooner?
We don’t play with traditional wingers. Wenger uses playmakers out wide who come inside diagonally. We get our width from our fullbacks. Thus, very few, if any “traditional” wingers on the books…
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