Buying vs. Building: What Can Manchester City Learn from Southampton's Academy?

Southampton, who visit Manchester City this weekend for a key Premier League match, have excelled in recent seasons, much of which has been down to their ability to produce excellent young players.

Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Adam Lallana and reported City target Luke Shaw have all emerged from Southampton's academy in recent years. It's an impressive array of talent that has seen the club consolidate in the Premier League and steady their finances through player sales.

It also allows them to instill into their young players a playing style built on possession so that they're ready for the first team when their chance comes. Southampton have become known as a side who like to get the ball down and play, rather than one which chooses to stifle the opposition in the hope of emerging with a scruffy three points, and that style is implemented across the club.

They've won a slew of admirers, and their status as a Premier League side has been solidified since their return to the top flight in 2012, with their ability to produce excellent, and very often British, footballers the envy of many.

City, of course, have even grander plans of their own. This summer will see the launch of the Etihad Campus, an 80-acre state-of-the-art complex that will be home to 400 young players, with classroom facilities for 200. Of the 16.5 pitches spread out across the site, 12 are designed specifically for players age eight to 21.

As well as accommodating young players, the campus will also be the home of City's first-team players, with top-class medical and training facilities that will be used to entice potential new signings, as well as provide the best possible care and attention for those already on the playing staff.

Txiki Begiristain, City's director of football, has been central in devising the initiative. He played a significant role in Joan Laporta's 2003 backroom team who led Barcelona to new heights as they became the dominant force in world football, firstly under Frank Rijkaard and then, even more impressively, under Pep Guardiola.

Farhad Berahman

His vision is of a City side who play possession-based, passing football, with an accent on attack, right across every level of the club, from the very youngest players on the club's books, right through to the first team—exactly the same principle that defined Barcelona's success.

The Etihad Campus provides the tools for that vision to be realised. Nowhere else in the world will young players have at their disposal better facilities than those at Manchester City.

Patrick Vieira, Manuel Pellegrini and Begiristain all subscribe to the same vision of possession-based, attacking football. Vieira, Head Coach of the Elite Development Squad, will be instrumental in ensuring the philosophy is embedded at youth level. He wants to see players in his squad prepared, both physically and tactically, for life in the first team.

And the Etihad Campus is an emphatic answer to the critics who insisted that Sheikh Mansour saw City as just a "plaything," or those who believe the club intend to "buy the league." This new complex is the most forward-thinking youth development initiative in England.

City hope that this can reignite their ability to produce players capable of playing in their first team. For years before the Mansour takeover, City were famed for outstanding academy, producing a raft of players that went on to make the senior side.

Of course, post-investment it became more difficult to produce players of the requisite quality. In fact, only Micah Richards can truly claim to have had the ability to hold his own in the Mansour era.

But with this new campus, which will cost more than £100 million to build, City are doing everything they can to rectify that. As Southampton have shown, consistently producing your own quality players brings huge footballing and economic benefits.

Rob Pollard is Bleacher Report's lead Manchester City correspondent and will be following the club from a Manchester base throughout the 2013-14 season. Follow him on Twitter here: @RobPollard_.