Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer would walk into Pep Guardiola's ageing side had they not been sold
Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer would walk into Pep Guardiola’s ageing side had they not been sold
As if the sight of Morgan Rogers sweeping home Aston Villa’s winning goal was not galling enough for Manchester City supporters, the celebration that followed must have felt like an additional kick in the gut.
Rubbing his arms together as if he was cold – a move designed to signify a sense of coolness under pressure – Rogers’ celebration has long been adopted by his former City team-mate, Cole Palmer, with whom it is now synonymous.
It has not stopped Rogers performing the move but, for those City fans at Villa Park on Saturday, they could have been forgiven for wishing he had refrained on this occasion for it was an unwanted reminder of not one but two players that have got away – and needlessly so.
Both 22, Palmer and Rogers would walk into this ageing, flailing City team and the same would be true for another former academy graduate, Romeo Lavia, sold to Southampton in 2022 but now making significant strides at Chelsea after injury derailed his first season at Stamford Bridge.
Cole Palmer showed flashes of the brilliance in the Man City first team before being sold to Chelsea last year
Palmer showed flashes of brilliance in the Manchester City first team before being sold to Chelsea last year
City have taken great pride from the huge sums they have raised from player sales in recent years, much of it underpinned by a burgeoning academy system that has either developed (Palmer) or acquired (Rogers, Lavia) talent that has then been sold on, often for handsome fees.
Yet in the rush to create a self-sustaining business model and ensure they stay ahead of the curve in an era of increasing cost controls on clubs, City have dropped the ball when it comes to some of their academy jewels.
Palmer’s sale to Chelsea for £42.5 million in September last year always looked a far riskier move than the decision to sell Raheem Sterling to the west London club 12 months earlier or Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal that same summer, and it has rebounded on City spectacularly. In truth, it did not need Pep Guardiola’s side to lose nine of their past 12 matches to tell us that.
With 33 goals in 46 Premier League starts for Chelsea, the England international has established himself as one of Europe’s best players and the sort of creative, ruthless, irrepressible forward City’s frazzled manager could really do with right now.
Of course, no club get every transfer decision right but Palmer’s exit no longer feels like an isolated mistake and the missteps both in terms of outgoings and incomings over the past two years have served only to intensify the scale of the rebuild City are facing next year.
How this City squad – 12 of whose members will be 30 or over next year – could do with the injection of youth, pace, energy and dynamism the likes of Palmer, Rogers and Lavia would have offered them and perhaps Pedro Porro, too, the right-back sold to Sporting but now impressing with Spurs.
Rogers has five goals and three assists for Villa this season following his match-winning turn against City – he also set up Jhon Durán’s opener and hit a post – and with every week the decision to sell him to Middlesbrough for £1.5 million, a month before Palmer left for Chelsea, appears increasingly costly.
How Manchester City would welcome Morgan Rogers' dynamism
City allowed Morgan Rogers to join Middlesbrough for £1.5m
Not even the £3.6 million sell-on fee City received when Rogers joined Villa in a projected £15 million move in February will cushion the blow given the transfer fee he would now command and, moreover, the impact he could have on a team that look slow, uncertain and bereft of confidence.
Much the same is true of Lavia, the 20-year-old who, despite missing Chelsea’s last two league games through injury, offers the physicality and intensity City’s old, tired midfield is desperately lacking.
City sold Lavia – whom they had originally signed from Anderlecht – to Southampton for a projected £14 million and received another £8 million sell-on when he subsequently moved to Chelsea after turning down Liverpool. But that is a fraction of the fee City are likely to have to spend on midfield reinforcements in the next two transfer windows.
Romeo Lavia departed Manchester City for Southampton before joining Chelsea
Romeo Lavia left City for Southampton before joining Chelsea
In their latest accounts for last season – published 10 days ago – it was revealed that City have raised almost £550 million in profit on player sales in the past eight years.
Much of that has been a consequence of selling on academy talent, from the likes of James Trafford to Burnley, Brahim Díaz to Real Madrid, Carlos Borges to Ajax and Gavin Bazunu and Shea Charles to Southampton.
It is a record of which City are very proud but, certainly in the case of Palmer, Rogers and Lavia, it has been a false economy. The hardest thing for clubs competing at the very top end is to produce players good enough to deliver consistently in the first team.
That City have had a cluster of those players and opted to move them on is unlikely to do much to improve the mood at a time when the squad is craving some of the qualities they let go.