3 April 2008
VIDEO: Final first leg - Chelsea 1-1 Manchester City

Watch the highlights from a thrilling game at Chelsea where Gael Kakuta's towering header cancelled out Daniel Sturridge's opener.

Manchester City

3-1

Chelsea

Mee 23, Weiss 34, Ball (pen) 86

(4-2 agg)

McGivern og 6

The FA Youth Cup Sponsored by E.ON
Final, Second Leg 
7.45pm, Wednesday 16 April 2008
City Of Manchester Stadium, Manchester City FC 

Manchester City's Academy Coach Alex Gibson has revealed that manager former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has played an active role in the club's FA Youth Cup success this season.

Eriksson has shown a keen interest in the club's prolific youth system since taking charge last summer, despite spending over £40million on foreign talent.

In the last decade, 25 Academy graduates have broken into the first-team including Michael Johnson and Micah Richards, who were both in the City side that lost the 2006 FA Youth Cup Final against Liverpool and have been mainstays under Eriksson this season.

The Swedish boss has also handed a first league start to Daniel Sturridge and the likes of David Ball, Ben Mee and Vladimir Weiss could soon follow after helping City to a 4-2 aggregate win over Chelsea in this year's Final on Wednesday.

"The manager occasionally pulls players out and quite a number of the boys that played have had the experience of working with Sven and the first-team players, which is invaluable in their upbringing," said Gibson.

"The nice thing is that when you're talking to them on a daily basis, you're saying to them that at this club, the opportunity is there and the management will put you in the team.

"Sven's very enthusiastic about the team, we have full support, he came into the changing room and he knows the players, even at this young age.

"He's spoken highly of the likes of Johnson and Richards, who are in his squad, and he was delighted when he came with some of the youngsters here."

A 3-1 win at the City of Manchester Stadium on Wednesday secured City's first FA Youth Cup for 22 years and City's other Academy teams are also going from strength to strength.

"We encourage player development but winning is very important too and they go hand in hand," added Gibson.

"If you develop a losing player, I'm not too sure how successful they'll be.

"We've had a philosophy here of trying to develop players with lots of practice with the ball and winning as an essential, and I think we've lost about five games from 80 this season across the senior Academy teams."