PURCHASE, N.Y. – When New York City FC head coach Jason Kreis spoke about the possibility of bringing up to four Manchester City youth players on loan in February, he clearly had Shay Facey in mind.
The 22-year-old defender is on a three-month loan with the Major League Soccer expansion side that expires June 30. But Kreis is keen to keep Facey in New York for the remainder of the season.
“We haven’t had any conversations in and around that yet. I think we will very soon,” Kreis said. “From our point of view we would like to see him stay. He’s a quality player who adds a little bit of a different element to our group. We appreciate everything he’s done.”
Facey has had a disjointed start to his loan spell. He joined the club in preseason camp to rehab from an injury. Facey picked up another knock, served a one-game suspension after being sent off in a scoreless draw at Colorado on March 21 in his first MLS start, and then had to return to Manchester to deal with a death in the family.
“I’m here from now on and it’s something I’m quite happy about,” Facey said. “It was a loss of a family member, which is never easy to deal with, especially coming to work and having to play football and a lot of your energy is used up when something like that happens.”
Facey, who captained the Manchester City Elite Development Squad a year ago, returned to the starting lineup on May 3 against Seattle and came off the bench to play the final 60 minutes of last Friday’s 2-2 draw with the Chicago Fire.
He said his experience, both in games and on the training ground, has been invaluable to his development.
“Training in a first team environment is a massive step coming from reserve football,” Facey said. “A league as competitive as MLS is is really pushing me and hopefully at some point I’ll move to central [defense] because that’s my preferred playing position, but for now no matter where I play the experience I’m gaining is massive.”
What does the future hold for Facey? He could join Manchester City's preseason tour, as he did in 2013, or he could stay with NYCFC for the rest of the 2015 season.
For the moment, Facey doesn’t have a preference.
“I just want to get as many games in as possible and as many good performances as I can to take me back into maybe a preseason with the first team back home or an extension for the second part of the season here in New York,” Facey said. “I’m here now until June 30th and hopefully I can just concentrate and knuckle down.”
