Manchester United expected to follow Chelsea trend in transfer swoop for Manchester City academy graduates | OneFootball

Some within Manchester City are anticipating rivals Manchester United to make pursuits for some of the club’s academy graduates in the near-future.

The last few years have seen Manchester City produce some of the finest young talents within the game, many of which are now starring across both the Premier League and within leagues throughout Europe.

While the ultimate goal will no doubt be to produce talents good enough to progress into Pep Guardiola’s first-team squad, City also view their academy system as an excellent way to generating revenue for the club while issuing top-level careers to their young talents.

Within the Premier League, City have numerous names excelling having moved away from the club, namely Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, Tosin Adarabioyo, Jadon Sancho, and Romeo Lavia, while Morgan Rogers and Liam Delap are starring at Aston Villa and Ipswich respectively.

And the recent January transfer window almost saw a number of high-profile youth players make moves away from the Etihad Stadium, with Nico O’Reilly attracting interest from Chelsea, and James McAtee being the talk of over 10 clubs across Europe.

Now, according to the information of The Athletic’s Sam Lee, sources around Manchester City expect Manchester United to make similar moves to Chelsea in the coming years when it comes to pursuing Academy graduates from the Etihad Stadium.

For now, it remains to be seen whether any of Manchester City’s existing talents are attracting interest from Manchester United in the immediate term, although the two clubs have already exchanged several young players in recent years.

In October 2023, Etihad Stadium talent-spotters completed a deal to sign now-former Arsenal and Manchester United centre-back Harrison Parker from the Old Trafford club’s highly-rated academy system.

While heading in the opposite direction, in July 2023, Manchester United agreed a fee of around £1.25 million to sign Darren Fletcher’s 16-year-old twin sons Jack and Tyler from the City Football Academy.