'I'd have called Pep mad as a player, but now I'm trying to produce Man City's next John Stones'

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

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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 their advantage down the age groups?

"It's getting the balance," Wilkinson tells MEN Sport. "Ultimately, our job is to develop first team players - ideally for our first team but you can look at a centre-back at 16 or 17 and think 'he's probably not for our team but he can be a very good Championship or Premier League defender'.

"Someone like Kian Noble for example has done exactly the same role as John Stones, stepping into midfield at times and he's comfortable in