Manchester City under-18’s boss Jason Wilcox has spoken glowingly about two of the club’s most promising youngsters.
Both Manu Garcia and Cameron Humphreys shone in this year’s pre-season tour and Wilcox has heaped praise on the two for the attitude and application.
Wilcox is quoted in the Manchester Evening News as saying: “When I look at Manu and Cameron’s journey we had some really frank conversations along the way, and you’ve got to have that with the players.
“As long as you’re honest and have a development plan for them then I think they don’t like it at the time, but those two in particular embraced what I had to tell them.”
It’s been a tough period for Manu Garcia, hailing from the same part of Spain as Juan Mata and Santi Cazorla, in terms of moving to England at such a young age. He has not only worked on off-the-field matters and now speaks fluently in English, but has blossomed into a real talent – already earmarked as a potential David Silva replacement.
“Manu has had to adapt to a different culture, different style of football if you like and he’s done it extremely well. It’s no surprise to me whatsoever that he’s done extremely well because of the type of lad he is.
“We’ve just had a group of Under-10s in the corridor and I brought Manu in to speak to them because he still lives at the CFA and he’s a really humble kid who has got tremendous personal skills as well as ability.” Said Wilcox.
Furthermore, Cameron Humphreys has had quite the rise to stardom, graduating to the EDS by the end of last season came around and then propelling himself to the echelons of the first-team – playing against Ronaldo and co at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before he had even turned 17.
Wilcox admits that he too is a great example of a well-grounded young player.
“Cameron’s exactly the same. He’s been training, playing in front of 100,000 against Real Madrid. When he came back here the first thing he did was to come and watch his mates training.
“That tells me a lot about them and they’re the type of people that we want to bring to our football club.”
