The journalist in question is Miguel Delaney who is the chief sportswriter for the Independent, and who has regularly been very critical of City and the City football empire/sportswashing project, but uses them as a paragon of excellence in this article. It's a bit sneaky, but it must be admitted that City are very well organised at ground-level, if you close your eyes and plug your ears about what goes on above it. The article disregards that because those facts don't really help the point he's making.
It's not that City are the only way of doing things, it's that they have a coherent vision. United don't, and that United's mouthpieces keep talking about end products (fast attacking football, bringing through the youth, the United way, blah blah blah) which are ends rather than processes.
It's not a terrible article, but it could be half as long and still make the same point.
Getting a bit off the point for this thread, but Delaney is very like another Irish journalist, Ken Early, on this subject. Both have criticised City a lot (sometimes together on Second Captains) for the off the field stuff and soulless PR bollocks like the documentary, but then for some reason they absolutely fawn over them as a footballing enterprise.
Sorry lads, but to me you can't separate the two things. They have a world class football operation cos they have unlimited funds. They have unlimited funds cos they're owned by sportswashing oil barbarians. The fact that they're a winning operation unfairly funded has led to them having a horrible toxic fanbase jumping to defend the financial doping and any of the owners' crimes.
All these things are interlinked and you can't just say, "well, City are pricks and a cancer on the soul of football, but let's write a 1000 words on how amazing they are at the same time". Sorry, but this is a pet hate of mine.
As much as I find it hilarious that United are a shambles and are burning through managers and money in an ill-fated scramble to find a way back to the glory days, deep down I still respect them up to a point as an institution. Their name means something, and, as funny as it is to watch them wasting it and failing, they've at least earned the right to throw that money around on shite like Sanchez and Pogba and Maguire. City haven't earned a fucking thing, so excuse me if I shake my head at journalists who act like they invented how to run a football club.