A number of players harbour dreams of playing for Manchester City.
Indeed, as one of the biggest and richest clubs in world football, City are a dream destination for any player, particularly those who are boyhood fans.
Phil Foden was a boyhood City fan, and he got to live his dream of starring for the Cityzens.
Meanwhile, Erling Haaland grew up with an affinity for City, and now, he’s arguably City’s most important player.
Now, another player has admitted that he grew up dreaming of playing for City.
Indeed, speaking on I Had Trials Once, Burnley captain, Josh Brownhill, has claimed that he grew up as a City fan and wanted to play for City as a kid.
However, as a youngster he actually chose a move to Manchester United’s academy over City due to the fact they had a better set up at that time.
Josh Brownhill wanted to play for Man City
Brownhill told the story of how his career got started.
The midfielder says that he was actually with the Man City academy at one point, but he had to pick between City and United as a youngster.
Despite being a City fan, the Burnley star says he had to pick to United due to the facilities.
“But actually I was at City, I was training at City and United. And obviously I’m a City fan as well. So I was like, you know, obviously I wanted to go play for Man City,” Brownhill said.
“But when it got to it, when I was training at both of them, you have to sign a contract at seven. Like, I don’t know, it’s like you can’t really play for another team, it’s like insurance and stuff like that. So like you can’t play for another team, you have to pick one.
“So I remember dad was like, who do you want to pick, like United or City? And obviously being a City fan, you’d think I would go for City. But I think at the time I was like, I could see what was going on, how their set up was.
“I was like, United, so I ended up going to United at like 6, 7. And yeah, I was all the way through there until under 16s. But I think for me it was up until probably 13s, 14s, I was like pretty good.”
What Vincent Kompany said about Josh Brownhill
Brownhill may never have fulfilled his dream of playing for Manchester City, but he did manage to work with one of the most influential figures in City’s history.
Vincent Kompany is arguably City’s greatest captain ever, and he was Brownhill’s manager at Burnley a few years ago.
Kompany was a huge fan of Brownhill, hailing him as a top player, via the Burnley Express.
“He’s brought that work-rate into the team this season. You know that he’s a player who, if he gets into the right areas, has got the skills to finish, the skills to play a final ball, but he’s given us so much more than that in terms of leadership and setting an example for the other lads,” Kompany said.
“He’s got that blend that we spoke about. Players like Anass Zaroury become better and quicker when they’re around senior players like [Johann Berg] Gudmundsson, Barnesy, Corky, Browny, so it’s important to have that blend. I think that is something that has been in our squad, partly by design, partly inherited, and that has been key so far.”
Brownhill joined Burnley for £9m, and he’s carved out a more than respectable career for himself at Turf Moor and he’ll be back in the Premier League with the Clarets next season.
