Wilkinson is a key cog in City’s academy system that has reaped positive rewards in creating a fluid pathway for our young players to help reach their potential.
And ahead of the start of the 2023/24 campaign, Wilkinson said his main priority for the next 11 months – like seasons prior - was the development of his players.
“It has to be individual development,” said Wilkinson when asked what his ambitions are for the upcoming season.
“Looking at the players arrive in the group at the start of the year and looking at how they end at the end of the season, seeing how far they’ve progressed and seeing if they’re closer to the end goal of getting in the first team.
“Which I think over the past couple of years we can look at and think we’ve had a lot of examples where that’s been successful now you’ve got players playing either in and around our first team or out on loan.
“So I think that’s ultimately the key goal but obviously to gauge that it does help if we can put them in arenas where they are playing the bigger games and they tend to be when you go deeper in the cup competitions or league games which are important just because ultimately we are trying to provide players for our first team and those games mirror that environment the best.
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“So while we are focusing on the individual, we learn the most out of the individual in those big games so I think one eye on both really but we would never sort of jeopardise the development of the individual at the expense of trying to win something.”
Most recently we’ve had Cole Palmer, Oscar Bobb, James McAtee and Rico Lewis all graduate to the first team thanks to the hard work of Wilkinson, Under-21s head coach Brian Barry-Murphy and the other Academy coaches who have played vital roles in the development of our rising stars.
A major factor in City seeing Academy players fit in so naturally to first-team football is because of the style of football the Club implements throughout all of our teams.
Wilkinson has lost just six league games out of 50 with this style and it’s something fans can expect to see again this coming campaign.
“Hopefully nothing different really in terms of the style,” said Wilkinson when asked about how the team will look to play.
“The way we want to play will never really change in terms of we want to dominate games, we want to build up from the back and we want to play with speed and arrive in the final third and then be creative.
“So hopefully it shouldn’t look any different. Obviously there will be certain nuances within that, we’ve got different players with different strengths and different positional profiles so it’ll look slightly different to last year in terms of what it might look like tactically.
“But in terms of anyone coming to watch the game and have an expectation of what we’re going to be about, hopefully it looks no different from first team down to Under-9s in terms of how our game model looks like.”
No team has ever won four consecutive Premier League Under-18s titles.
However, Wilkinson and his coaching staff don’t feel any sense of pressure to finish top of the table come the end of the 2023/24 campaign but hope their players can use the challenge as a positive motivator.
“I don’t think it’s something we consider because that’s really not what we’re here to do,” explained Wilkinson.
“It’s definitely not in the front of our minds. But what I would say is that it’s probably, certainly in the two years I’ve done this job, I think it does help as the culture of the Club now is to win so therefore the players are fiercely competitive and I think there’s a strong desire in those players to keep that going.
“It’s almost like they don’t want to be the year that doesn’t do it which obviously we know is going to happen at some point and there’s no issue when that does happen, but I do think it can also drive the players on from a mentality point of view and it’s not a bad habit to get in to.
“So from out point of view as coaches it’s not something we would really prioritise, it’s more about individual development and seeing how we can move the players on a dial to try and get closer to the first team.”
