How Guardiola genius filters through the club

IT is not only rival coaches and players scrambling to figure out Pep Guardiola's many tactical innovations at City and use his genius to their advantage.

- JOE BRAY

It turns out their own coaches and academy players are also having to keep up with the manager's latest experiments.

"Who doesn't look at our manager and take inspiration from him?" asks under-18 head coach Ben Wilkinson.

Two years ago, the academy were figuring out how to invert their fullbacks into midfield like Guardiola had done with Joao Cancelo.

Step forward Rico Lewis, who did the job so well that he was fast-tracked to the first-team and ended up forcing Cancelo out of the club on loan.

After Lewis' graduation, the academy are now looking to Guardiola's innovative use of his centre-backs that characterised their run to winning the Treble last season. In particular, John Stones became an all-action centre-back, pushing forward into midfield in possession and running the show in the Champions League final.

So how can City's academy coaches take Guardiola's development of the 'Stones role' and use it to down the age their advantage groups?