“He tried his best” – Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers reflects on experience with Pep Guardiola and Manchester City | OneFootball

Aston Villa star Morgan Rogers has looked back on his time at Manchester City and working under Pep Guardiola earlier in his rapidly developing career.

The England youth international was able to show the Premier League champions exactly what they are now missing by not putting their faith in him for longer having provided both a goal and an assist in the weekend’s 2-1 win over City.

The 22-year-old was influential across the pitch in driving Aston Villa forward and dominating Manchester City’s defence throughout the 90 minutes, inflicting yet further damage on a torrid run of form for Pep Guardiola’s side.

Rogers had been first recruited by City back in 2019 from the youth set-up of West Bromwich Albion, before being sent out on a trio of successive loan spells in the Football League at Lincoln City, Bournemouth, and Blackpool.

The two parties would eventually part way in the summer of 2023, with City penning a deal with Middlesbrough for Rogers, who was then sold on to Aston Villa during the last summer market for a package agreement that could be worth up to £15 million.

Speaking to TNT Sports around Aston Villa’s meeting with City, Rogers was keen to issue praise on the legendary Pep Guardiola for the role the Catalan tactician played in the earlier stages of his rising career.

“Unbelievable manager, unbelievable person as well,” Rogers said of the Manchester City head coach. “The interactions that I had with him were all positive or helped me or wanted the best for me, trying to help me improve and develop.

“I owed him a lot for the time, because I was young coming through and he tried his best to help me.”

Morgan Rogers reflected on his time working under Manchester City’s coaching and guidance by labelling his experiences as “invaluable” whilst training under some of the best players on the planet.

“I didn’t quite get to that level to take that step there, but it helped me take that step somewhere else,” he said. “And those valuable experiences helped me become the player I am. There’s a load of incredible quality and talent there.

“So to stick out as one is very hard and only a few have done that. It’s good for a learning experience, and that’s what I used it as, to soak up information, to play around players, and to say that I’ve got to play and train with some of the best players in the world is something that could never be taken away from me.”

Rogers is part of a long list of former Manchester City Academy stars to now be plying their trade at the very top of European football, and to great success at that after leaving the City Football Academy in recent years.

The most known of those is likely to be Cole Palmer, with the England international now the poster of Chelsea following two exemplary seasons working under both Mauricio Pochettino and Enzo Maresca.

Elsewhere, there are also starring performances from the likes of Jadon Sancho also at Chelsea, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens at Borussia Dortmund, and Liam Delap at Ipswich Town.