Manchester City youngsters will hope to continue the trophy surge across the club when they take on Tottenham in the final of the Under-17 Premier League Cup.
It is set to be a busy few months at the City Football Academy, with all three men's teams and the women's team all in the hunt for silverware. As Pep Guardiola's side chase the Treble, Ben Wilkinson's side can follow the women's success in the League Cup last month and clinch their first trophy of the campaign.
City rightly insist that getting players through to the first team is more important than winning things when judging the academy. But the two tend to go hand in hand, and Wilkinson's youngsters are exactly where he wants them as they are pushed to embrace the winning culture at the club.
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"From a development point of view, these are the games that we want to see the lads in," he said. "For the demands of the club, we need to get the lads as many of these experiences as we can along their pathway that will prepare them as well as we can for if they ever make those moments playing higher up.
"There is an element of it just being another game and we will prepare no different than we do for any other game but there is a little more pressure on it and rightly so, which is really good for us because we get to see what the lads are like in that environment and how they step up in it.
"We want to put them in this situation as many times as we can to see what they're like playing under a little more pressure. This is my fourth year here and the success that has happened previously drives the players and the staff in terms of the culture, which is a really positive thing.
"You have the first team setting the standards and our lads will sometimes get opportunities to train with them and see those standards and see how far off still they are, so that gives them the motivation to keep pushing and emulating the academy teams from previous seasons. There has definitely been a winning culture established, which is a really positive thing for everyone who works here."
City are clear at the top of the Under-18s league, putting them in a good position to defend the title they won last year with an older age group. If following in successful footsteps is a motivator, so too is failure.
The Blues have already been knocked out of two cups this season, and the FA Youth Cup defeat at Brighton was particularly painful; City dominated the game but could not score and a defensive error accounted for the only goal. That has been raised in preparations for Wednesday's final as Wilkinson wants the players to appreciate the feeling of missed opportunities as well as how cups can spur you on.
"They still hurt and we're still disappointed. I certainly believe that we were the best team in the FA Youth Cup," he said.
"You've got a United-Notts Forest final and we probably believe that we're better than both of those teams so it's really disappointing to go out in both of those competitions, but it is a great lesson for the players. We've been around here a long time and the defeat at Brighton happens a lot in cup football.
"It is one of those things when you don't take your chances and make a mistake, we've all seen those games and we got done by it this year. I will remind the boys about that because in a one-off game anything can happen. It's something we will touch on before the game.
"We've got six games left in the league and are in a really good position. If we can get over the line in this competition it will certainly give the boys more confidence. I don't think they need it but it will show them that they can win big games."
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