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Patrick Vieira could be future Man City coach with NYCFC success - Marwood

Patrick Vieira may be in line to become Manchester City manager if he succeeds at New York City FC, according to club official Brian Marwood.

Former Arsenal and France captain Vieira was named the second head coach in NYCFC's brief history on Nov. 12, signing a three-year deal with Man City's MLS sister club.

Vieira played for City before being put in charge of their elite development squad in 2013, and the club's football administration officer Marwood told Sky Sports that Etihad officials will be monitoring the former midfielder's progress in New York with current manager Manuel Pellegrini's deal up in 2017.

"It was important that we could find the next development stage for Patrick and it was still part of the group," Marwood said. "That opportunity came about in New York. We are really excited, he is really excited by it and I think it is exactly the next step he needs.

"Hopefully, at some point, he'll come back and manage Manchester City. That's the ambition for him and that's the ambition for us. But he has to go through this learning curve.

"We always felt from day one that he could make a major contribution to the club. The club, at that time, still had a lot of developing to do, a lot of growing up to do and the culture, which is very important to what we are about, needed to be driven by people that had been around winning mentalities, winning culture, humility and trying to have the right values and behaviours.

"We felt Patrick epitomised all of those things, so he was very crucial to where we were in that stage in our development."

Vieira also took on a business role at City following his retirement from football, and Marwood says the 39-year-old's experience now makes him a viable long-term consideration for a managerial role City.

"Since he came, he showed that within the dressing room, but we also felt there was a big long-term potential with him," he added. "We took him on our journey that saw him for one year working within the business.

"He had lived as a footballer for many years, but probably had not quite grasped or understood the importance of communications, marketing, commercial, legal and all those areas.

"To be fair to him, he immersed himself fully in those 12 months and I think he came away with a different perception of what a football club was about."

Vieira won three Premier League titles at Arsenal and three consecutive Serie A titles with Inter, as well as the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2010 with France.

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