Manchester City academy chief Jim Cassell is confident the club's new owners want their successful youth system to continue.

"Any fears that we had were put to bed very early on when the new chairman Khaldoon Al Mabarak came to see me and I put a presentation on to show him exactly what the academy is about," Cassell said.

"That was on a Sunday morning and he was so enthused that he insisted on going straight from there to watch the under-10s, 12s and 14s games and he was very kind in his words afterwards.

"All the indications so far are that we're going to get the support and the new owners are very keen for us to tell them about any additional support that we want. We just want to take it step by step because what we've got at the moment, works."