For the last three years, the Premier League trophy and the two other Premier League trophies awarded at the academy level have both sported sky blue and white ribbons.
The senior domestic scene has been dominated by Manchester City, who have won five of the last six Premier League championships. Their influence also extends to the under-21 and under-18 levels of English football, where they have won the Premier League 2 and under-18 Premier League national championships for the past three years.
That “triple treble,” as chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak dubbed it, is a credit to City’s dedication to the game at all levels, with a strong pipeline of talent constantly coming through the academy system. Phil Foden, Rico Lewis, and Cole Palmer are just a few of the first-team players it has produced, while some who didn’t quite cut it have brought the squad millions of pounds in transfer fees.
However, Premier League teams have approved a dramatic alteration to the Premier League 2 system for the upcoming season, seriously jeopardizing City’s prospects of defending their title.
The Premier League 2 currently has a straight league structure with two divisions. The team that finishes first in the league at the end of the season is proclaimed champion. All teams play each other both at home and away.
However, the leagues will be combined the following year, and a more intricate “Swiss” method for scheduling games will be implemented to provide players a fresh challenge. Even though it gave young players an identical duplicate of the divisions they will play in for the remainder of their lives, the former promotion and relegation system was thought to divert too much attention from player development.
In a controversial system identical to the one that will be utilized in the Champions League starting in 2024–2025, the new model was approved by shareholders last month at their Annual General Meeting, and it will take effect in the upcoming season.
There will be a single 25-team division with clubs seeded into five pots of five teams rather than a top division of 14 teams and a bottom division of 11 teams. Then, each club in their own pot will be played, along with four or five teams from the other pots.
Following the conclusion of all of those games, the combined table will decide the play-off positions, with the top 16 teams advancing to a knockout stage. Accordingly, City might, in theory, finish first in the league standings yet lose in the play-off round against a team that finished as low as 16th.
Given that City has won the top league for each of the last three seasons, it would be surprising to see them anywhere other than Pot One. The seeding will be based on historical performance in the last three years in the PL2.
No matter how many games they play, City will once again be certain that they can win the division; nevertheless, leaving the end-of-season championships to a knockout competition may endanger their chances of successfully retaining their crown.
In the under-18 Premier League, championships are given to the winners of the Northern and Southern divisions before they play in a one-time championship match that City has won the last three years.
Ben Wilkinson, head coach of the under-18 team, discussed the risks of a one-off knockout game with MEN Sport prior to this year’s National Final victory over West Ham.
The manager [Pep Guardiola] frequently argues that the best team in a league wins the league. Coming out on top after 24, 38 games proves your squad is the greatest. I’ve always believed that the outcome of one-off games might depend on a lot of little things, as we discovered at Arsenal [during the FA Youth Cup semifinal].
But it all comes back to the fact that we’re in a development environment and that we want to expose the players to as many of those high-pressure situations where you have to perform as possible while we’re doing that. From that vantage point, we can see the boys’ current situation, which is a highly useful learning opportunity.
In order to give their young players the exposure they need to succeed in first-team football, City coaches combine a league system with a knockout competition. On the other hand, as Wilkinson mentioned, City lost a player to a red card last season, and as a result, they were eliminated from three cup events from the under-18 to under-19 age groups.
Under the new format, it would only take one terrible game or one poor judgment in an early play-off game to finish a season early and deny those players the opportunity to defend their crowns. Additionally, because of the condensed league schedule, more games will be decided by one-off knockouts, which will provide growing players a new perspective.
The other side of the argument is that additional exposure to knockout games will assist create experience that is required to win those competitions in the future, given City’s numerous problems in the FA Youth Cup, EFL Trophy, and UEFA Youth League in recent seasons.
The new Premier League 2 format will not be an exception for City, who will approach every competition with the goal of winning it. It’s now up to coaches and players to figure out a method to adapt to the new format after refining the formula to win the previous one, even if it makes their championship defence more uncertain than they would prefer.