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Manchester City fielded eight academy players against Huddersfield in the Carabao Cup third round tie and two more from the start against Burnley
Pep Guardiola believes Manchester City's academy is showing the signs it can reach the standards set at Barcelona after eight of the club's graduates featured in the 2-0 win against Huddersfield in the Carabao Cup.
Divine Mukasa, Jaden Heskey and Reigan Heskey all made their debuts at the Accu Stadium and featured alongside James Trafford, Rico Lewis, Nico O'Reilly, Phil Foden and Oscar Bobb in the third round success in West Yorkshire.
It was another good night for an academy that has enjoyed plenty of success recently, with Lewis and O'Reilly joining Foden as first-team regulars and Bobb shining this season, after injury wrote off 2024/25 for him.
Guardiola also pointed to the academy youngsters who have left the Etihad but gone on to shine elsewhere, such as the Chelsea trio Romeo Lavia, Cole Palmer and Liam Delap, as evidence of the quality of players being produced.
"In Barcelona, we played the Champions League final for the first time against Man United, seven played at the academy, that is the standard for the top of the academy," the City boss said.
"To play one game, the Carabao Cup, it's a good sign. James Trafford has come back after being built here, and of course in other clubs like Burnley, and Phil, Rico, Nico that are the other ones. Divine has a huge potential, but we will see in the future.
"Imagine the other players, who unfortunately left, they were top, top class players above, and could not have the space, my God, we would have a starting XI right now in the first team, because if you start to count up all the incredible players at other clubs that have been educated, being played here in the Man City academy.
"But it's a good sign that still we have loan players, like they are playing a lot, Max Alleyne at Watford has been playing really good and so many of them here have the potential to help us and see what happens. And that's why we have the academy."
City have seen some outstanding young players leave the club due to a lack of opportunities, and Guardiola pointed to that as the difficulty facing the academy, with the quality needed to break into the senior set-up sky high at the Etihad.
"At the end, we have top, top class players that are not here, and everybody knows it," said Guardiola. "It's because was a top, top field of players to win the Trebles and Quadruples. It was in that moment, in that level, it would not be in that moment, this may be the capability to make a step up, these players would still be here for sure."
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