£45m transfer exits and Premier League rule change - Why Man City academy are bottom of the league

Manchester City are bottom of the Premier League.

That is not a sentence that is uttered often, but in the case of City's academy, it is absolutely true this Christmas. At the midway point of the Premier League 2 season, Brian Barry-Murphy's Elite Development Squad sit 26th out of 26 in the table. A fourth successive title seems a long, long way off.

Strangely enough, though, they could still win the competition. As long as they finish in the top 16 of the revamped competition, they still have a chance of being crowned Premier League 2 champions via the end-of-season knockout format. This was a major overhaul of the way academy football is played and it took the City bosses a while to adapt to.

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So how have City got here, after dominating the academy scene for the last three years? It is not purely because the PL2 is arranged slightly differently that the young Blues have gone from top to bottom in six months.

Over the summer, City made more than £45m from academy players. Carlos Borges left for Ajax for £13m, potentially rising to £17.3m, while captain Shea Charles joined Southampton for a fee of £10.5m which could rise to £15m. Prolific winger Dire Mebude joined Westerlo for £1.75m, while James Trafford bumped the coffers when he joined Burnley for an initial £15m - although he wasn't in the squad last season.

That helped City go out and spend good money on the likes of Mateo Kovacic, Jeremy Doku, Josko Gvardiol and Matheus Nunes, but it did leave a considerable hole in Barry-Murphy's squad. Between Borges, Mebude and Oscar Bobb (prompted permanently to the first team),