'Wouldn't stay on' - Man City next stars ordered to avoid Phil Foden instinct with Pep Guardiola

Phil Foden's journey to becoming the best player in the Premier League was predicted from his early years in Manchester City's academy.

Everyone was cautious to let the secret out about the tiny midfielder who could dance his way around any defence, but Foden's potential was so high that Txiki Begiristain made sure that Pep Guardiola knew all about him when he joined the club in 2016. The Stockport youngster was 16 at the time, and the manager vowed he would not have to wait long for his senior debut.

It came soon enough and all the accolades that have followed keep Foden as the most priceless gem to have come out of the City academy, inspiring others that they too can follow in his path. It hasn't all been plain sailing though, and the first chance a young Foden had to impress Guardiola in person did not go to plan.

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"I remember the first time that Pep came to watch us, he started being so selfish!" said former teammate Joel Latibeaudiere in the new City + documentary on Foden. "He would want the ball and try and take so many players on, shoot, and then run and get it back and do the exact same thing."

It was obvious that Foden was desperate to impress, but the playmaker would learn that Guardiola was more interested in focusing on the simple things. He would rather they were done well than too much was attempted.

That has been the message for all youngsters coming through, and particularly those who have been earmarked as having first-team potential but are getting most of their minutes in youth football. This season, Nico O'Reilly and Jacob Wright are in that bracket with the hope that they can apply what they learn in first-team training when they play for the academy at a weekend.

"The key thing for the boys spending time training with the first team is when they play in our games is not to try and do too much," said Under-21s coach Ben Wilkinson. "If they did that with the manager, they wouldn't stay on the pitch.

"It's doing the basics extremely well, having a good attitude without the ball, and with the ball they're obviously good players but making sure they do the basics time after time. Thankfully, we've got a lot of similarities in the way teams play so we wouldn't ask anything different than the manager would.

"When they play for us it is just a case of having a top attitude and being extremely good at the basics."