When swapping the battles of lower league football with Rochdale for Manchester City's academy last summer, two things Brian Barry-Murphy thought or had been told were quickly proven to be untrue.
The first was that Pep Guardiola has a big first team squad. It is spoken about as vast because of the quality running through the squad, but the manager prefers a small, versatile group to be able to solve problems in multiple ways and avoid as many awkward conversations with players about not getting picked as possible.
Secondly, linked to the first point, the idea that moving away from a competitive league towards a development project would make Barry-Murphy's life breezier than before was very much mistaken.
