Morgan Rogers and Taylor Harwood-Bellis sum up Man City transfer 'mistakes'

Can you remember where you were when Manchester City sold Morgan Rogers?

The fury that you took to group chats and social media with, the national phone-ins that you rang up and the articles you shared about what a huge mistake Pep Guardiola had made? No, me neither.

The same goes for Romeo Lavia, Liam Delap, and even Cole Palmer in the long list of players that now look ideal to help the Blues get out of their current mess but simply didn't at the time. Rogers bullied City on Saturday but his time at the club didn't work to the extent that while he was at Bournemouth in the Championship he was left out of their squad for the second half of the 2021/22 season and could not sort another loan deal in the January window.

If there was any talk of Rogers when he left City, it was that the mistake was in paying what they did for him. That isn't to say that that was right either, but should illustrate that it takes time to be able to judge transfers properly.

Looking for City transfer errors, the bigger problems with Rogers and the rest has been not exercising buyback clauses. These have been specifically put into almost all deals (Palmer being a notable exception) so that if the player explodes into life City can bring them back.

Again, was anybody doing that when Rogers moved to Villa after six months at Middlesbrough? Maybe City's recruitment team should have been given they are paid exceptionally well to be ahead of the markets, but it's not like even at the end of the summer transfer window it was seen as a glaring issue.

Rogers looks an exceptional talent and is in a brilliant place to get even better at Villa, but you don't have to have come through City's academy this season to look good in comparison to the midfield