Manchester City see Patrick Vieira as future manager

Former Arsenal and City midfielder Vieira moved into management when he signed a three-year contract to become coach of City's sister club New York City in Major League Soccer in the USA.

Vieira coached City's development squad for a couple of years before landing the job in New York.

"It was important that we could find the next development stage for Patrick and it was still part of the group," said Marwood on Sky Sports.

"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."

Vieira won the World Cup in 1998 with France, three Premier League titles with Arsenal and three Serie A successes at Inter Milan before finishing his career with one season at City in 2010/11

"We always felt from day one that he could make a major contribution to the club," said Marwood.

"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."