Manchester City chief Garry Cook admits they're modelling their youth policy on Arsenal.

City barely had a scouting system in place when Sheikh Mansour, the billionaire Arab, bought the club in September last year. Now they have a worldwide network of 12 scouts, with more to follow, says The Times.

Asked if Arsenal's policy of plucking the best young players from around the world was something to which they aspired, Cook said: "Yes, absolutely, because financially it's a better model than the one you get into negotiating a market price that has no predetermining factors other than the supply and demand.

"It says, 'How badly do you want that player?' and that will determine the price. That's a model I don't subscribe to and I don't want to be beholden to it. I would rather control or manage our destiny over the long term.

"I think you're going to see Manchester City really ramp up its activity in the youth area. There's often the opinion that we are abandoning that as far as future investments are concerned because we're just going to keep buying players, but that's actually the antithesis of what we're trying to do."