The Man City 'B team' creating a conveyer belt of talent
Sky Sports speaks to former Manchester City youth coach Brian Barry-Murphy about the success of the club's Elite Development Squad, which is creating talent for teams all across Europe...
Wherever you look, the chances are you are going to see a Manchester City youth product. Pep Guardiola’s side found that out for themselves last month.
Their first game of the season saw them come up against Jadon Sancho in Manchester United colours in the Community Shield. The next game, they were reunited with Chelsea pair Cole Palmer and Romeo Lavia at Stamford Bridge. A week later, £20m profit player Liam Delap returned to the Etihad Stadium with Ipswich Town.
They are everywhere. The champions of Germany and Spain have one each in Jeremie Frimpong and Brahim Diaz. Juventus now have another in Douglas Luiz. Morgan Rogers and Jamie Gittens have started the season in fine form for Aston Villa and Borussia Dortmund respectively. Wolves have two City academy products in Tommy Doyle and Carlos Forbs, while Southampton have as many as five.
What unites all the players above is their time in City’s Elite Development Squad, also known as the EDS – a team sat in between the club’s first team and academy. Operating since 2012, it is tasked with either bringing top-class players into City’s first team or moving them on for huge profit.
“They view it as a B team,” Brian Barry-Murphy, who managed the EDS team for three seasons before leaving this summer in search of a role in first-team management, told Sky Sports.
Man City's former Elite Development Squad coach Brian Barry-Murphy
Man City's former Elite Development Squad coach Brian Barry-Murphy
“It’s where you bring the players out of the academy system and put them in a team where they’re getting prepared for first-team football."
Despite preparing youngsters for the first team, City’s EDS plays in the Premier League 2 division with the best academy sides in the country, but it is not too long before the players get noticed, especially from outside the club.
The amount of money City have generated from non-first-team players since Guardiola’s arrival in 2016 has now passed £500m.
But while the club have used their second team as a huge money-raising resource, City are now benefitting from top-quality ‘B team’ players in their first team.
Phil Foden – Premier League Player of the Season last term – is the biggest internal EDS success story, while the next generation is looming in Oscar Bobb and James McAtee.
“If Oscar can play a lot of minutes, he can do very good things,” said Guardiola before the Norwegian winger picked up a long-term injury. The City boss was equally appraising of McAtee: “I don’t want to loan him or sell him. I need him.”
With a conveyer belt of talent such as Palmer hitting their strides, what are the secrets of a development squad sitting below one of the best sides in the world?
Phil Foden, Premier League Player of the Season 2024
Jadon Sancho, Champions League finalist 2024
Cole Palmer, Euro 2024 final goalscorer
Brahim Diaz, LaLiga + Champions League winner, 2024
Jeremie Frimpong, Bundesliga winner, 2024
The impact of Maresca
Back in 2021, Barry-Murphy replaced a familiar face as EDS manager in Enzo Maresca, now first-team boss at Chelsea.
The Italian, who held the role for one season in 2020-2021 and led the team to the Premier League 2 title, was instrumental in turning the B team from a mere extension of the City academy into a team preparing for first-team football. The Palmer, Lavia and Bobb, among others, have since emerged towards stardom.
“Previously they had been seen as an academy team,” says Barry-Murphy of the EDS. “Enzo separated that – he put it beyond the academy and before the first team, where they were almost in transition.
“He wanted the players to start to understand what it was like to be a senior professional and a prospective first-team player. So when I got there, the players were insanely competitive and obsessed with improving to win.”
Putting the ‘B team’ players before City’s first team is a crucial part of the process, as every day Guardiola uses a large number of them in his training sessions – the youngsters get to rub shoulders with the stars, providing invaluable experience.
“We would work together every single day,” says Barry-Murphy. “Pep and his staff would have a session designed for their team and whatever players were required from our B team would be complimenting the rest of the group.
“There’s the opportunity to train with the first-team manager every single day and with the best players in the world. It’s really a unique environment.
“Then the progress is down to what the players can take from it. All the players reach the level they can because of the environment they’re in.”
Morgan Rogers, Aston Villa
Romeo Lavia, Chelsea
Tosin Adarabioyo, Chelsea
What Pep likes in young players
So what happens when the young players are in front of Guardiola and the host of Premier League winners in the City team?
“Pep is very open-minded in terms of the players being able to discover for themselves what they’re good at,” adds Barry-Murphy. “But he expects to have as fully rounded a player as possible when they come across.
“He’s so good in what he expects from the young players. He knows they all have a high level of technical ability, he knows they’re all pretty good players because of where they are.
“It’s all about the attention to detail of how they apply themselves, that’s what he looks for more than anything else.
“He’s very, very patient in technical improvements that the players may need to demonstrate because of their age. But if he sees something that doesn’t look right in the mentality or the effort, then he’s pretty demanding, as you can imagine.”
Of course, the chances of impressing to a significant extent are minimal. First and foremost, the quality of the City squad and the high demands of elite professional football mean Guardiola does not give chances to young players lightly.
City’s manager gave just 807 minutes of Premier League minutes to teenagers last season: all of them went to one player, Rico Lewis – who actually did not play in the EDS as he skipped that stage and went straight into Guardiola's first team from the U18s.
And City tend to add to their top talent via the transfer market over their academy. Young, unproved players from afar such as Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Jesus and most recently Julian Alvarez are bought and then sold for profits.
That is even before the best young players in the world - Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku, Josko Gvardiol and Savinho as recent examples - are signed to bolster the ranks.
Even with Bobb and McAtee near the first team, Foden is the only EDS player to break into Pep’s team and become a regular. And the England international is being branded a generational talent. Not all have his skills and potential.
“The players are pretty clear in their heads that the chances of progressing at the club are quite minimal based on the quality of the first team,” says Barry-Murphy about how to manage the EDS players’ expectations.
“But they’re switched on and educated that the more exposure they can have with Pep and the first team, it is going to inevitably help their next steps.
“And the proof is in the pudding of the calibre of players and clubs who they’ve moved on to.”
How to create 'Pep players'
Coaching quality players such as Palmer has its rewards, but Barry-Murphy cannot just coach a Cole Palmer, he has to develop a Guardiola-style Cole Palmer.
The EDS coach did not have to fall to the Man City boss’ exact philosophy but there was a code to adhere to: the code of Txiki Begiristain, who worked in tandem with Jason Wilcox and Joe Shields - academy chiefs now at Manchester United and Chelsea respectively - in overseeing all this young talent.
Director of football Begiristain masterminded the growth of Barcelona’s La Masia academy that produced Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi. His arrival at City in 2012 coincided with the birth of the Elite Development Squad that same year.
And Begiristain knows a thing or two about managing B teams and their managers. After all, he promoted Guardiola from Barcelona B coach to the first-team role in 2008 – and the rest is history.
So while Barry-Murphy had some freedom as City’s EDS coach, there were two tactical elements from his director of football that he had to follow.
“Txiki is very clear on the methodology he would like to see,” says Barry-Murphy.
“It’s based on the old Barcelona model of 4-3-3 with a focus on the holding midfield player and the two wide players, which are so synonymous and important to that structure. That’s why so many players in those positions have done so well in the immediate past.
“Txiki and Jason worked so efficiently when they were there together. The way they focus on the most important thing which was the players, training and improving them as individuals and the team – it was really insightful for me and it gave me an important way of improving myself.”
Explaining more about the 'Barcelona Way', he adds: “Central to that system is having a holding midfield player of a Guardiola-style player – a Sergio Busquets or a Rodri.
“And those wide players have been so synonymous with Barcelona when they were there. Now it’s at Manchester City: Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho – Sam Edozie is the one we last watched.
“That specific player has been there in the past, so the challenge is to keep producing them.”
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