Manchester City Defender Nedum Onuoha Disputes That Young Players Have It Easy

Manchester City's England Under-21 international Nedum Onuoha has reacted bullishly to recent statements from Frank Lampard and Paolo Di Canio that young players enjoy far too easy an existence these days, and don't learn the lessons their elders learnt when times were more demanding.

Lampard highlighted the maintenance jobs done around the club in past times by youngsters under the old apprentice system, where players would be taught the value of humility by undertaking activities like cleaning senior players' boots, painting changing room walls and sweeping the stands.

Onuoha maintains that there is still such a culture in the game, at his club anyway, and that young players today are prepared to work just as hard as their seniors did to achieve success.

"Maybe he [Lampard] knows a few people [in the comfort zone] but in terms of our team and the players I know, a lot of players don't get 'too much too young' because you have a grounding," the player told The Daily Telegraph.

"Even at Manchester City, it's very hard at the academy. You don't just walk into a professional contract. You always have to work hard whether you're cleaning cars or something like that. Although people say that's gone from football, there's still a lot that goes on.

"The majority of us at City used to clean the coaches' cars. It was [youth-team coach] Alex Gibson's car and it was quite a big car so it took a while. You can still go to some places now, like in the FA Academy League, and see a lot of people doing ground-work there.

"We were at Derby the other day and we weren't sure if one of the players there had to cut the grass, but it's not something people are aware of. They just think, 'He's a young player and he's got this and that'. It's not like that at all."

A different perspective was offered by Onuoha's coach at England Under-21 level, Stuart Pearce, who came into the game by a slightly different route from that taken by most players, certainly these days, as he spent a significant amount of time working as an electrician before turning professional as a footballer.

"I worked for five years in a job," said the former England defender.

"That served me well and I draw on that experience. I've not got the experience of being a young player being brought up through a club.

"I'm sure some of that is fantastic experience for a career. What we're talking about is young men who have to keep a level tilt on everything that goes on around them: some do, some we lose, and that's the sad thing about football.

"But there's a lot of good pros out there who get brought up in the right way who have a great mentality towards football and towards life."

Zack Wilson, Goal.com