“I need him. That’s why I want to keep him.”

Pep Guardiola promised a big season – and a big future – for James McAtee when he started him in Manchester City’s Community Shield last August. A year later, he is no longer in the City picture.

The 22-year-old academy graduate has left to join Nottingham Forest in a deal worth around £30m. Big money for a big talent who just could not find a spot in the squad.

City have been here before, though. They had a youngster by the name of Cole Palmer – who had roughly the same number of Premier League minutes in his final City season before leaving for Chelsea. In that similar amount of time, you could even say McAtee’s attacking output was better.

Like Palmer, McAtee did well to find the net in his brief City cameos but was never backed consistently on the biggest stage. The parallels go even further – Palmer was a key player at England’s U21 European Championship-winning team in his final summer as a City player. This year, McAtee was captain of Lee Carsley’s champions at the same tournament – just two years later.

Given how Palmer rose to fame at Chelsea, winning the Premier League Young Player of the Season award in his debut campaign at Stamford Bridge, Guardiola may feel uncomfortable letting another similar type of play go – especially considering what he said about him last summer.

“I said to Txiki Begiristain [City’s former sporting director] in the beginning of the season, I don’t want to loan him or sell him,” added Guardiola after that Community Shield start.

“When you find a player in small spaces that attack the final third, have a sense of goal, it’s difficult to find players of this quality.”

That feeling on McAtee is shared by those who developed him. “Pep always references how good he is in pockets,” Brian Barry-Murphy, Manchester City’s former youth coach and now Cardiff City’s new boss, tells Sky Sports.

“What’s the most significant thing about James McAtee? The tighter the spaces, the more at home and comfortable he is. He’s a very specific player in that role.”

As City’s Elite Development Squad head coach, Barry-Murphy grouped Palmer, McAtee and Oscar Bobb together as three players who could “do things with the ball that I’ve never seen before”. Yet the three of them feel or felt like the bridesmaids of Guardiola’s affections, rather than the main attraction.

Bobb was tipped for a breakout season in the one just gone before a long-term ankle injury kept him out for nearly the entire campaign. He is back in the fold now but even then, City invested in Savinho for Bobb’s right-wing role, highlighting the challenge of trying to break through when the club can just sign the world’s best young players for that area.

That is the main issue for City’s youngsters. Despite having one of the best academies in the world, they are also blessed with financially strong owners ready to flood the first team with Europe’s best talent.

McAtee found that out before his departure. Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki were signed in the attacking midfield position this summer for a combined £80m, while even teenage midfielder Sverre Nypan has been invested in that position for a further £12.5m.

For City youngsters like Palmer and McAtee, it has created a sink-or-swim surroundings that very few – Phil Foden and Rico Lewis being the only academy examples – have managed to thrive in when it comes to City’s first team.

“Because this City team is so dominant and so good, even if it seems like a big step up, you can do well and survive there and do well for a period,” adds Barry-Murphy.

“But then you either come back out or you stay in there and become established. That’s the challenge of how actually good you are.”

But Palmer has proved he is good enough, only elsewhere. He is not the only City academy product to do that.

City let Morgan Rogers depart for Middlesbrough for just £1m – then watched him move to Aston Villa, who could have taken City’s Champions League spot off them. Rogers even scored the winning goal against City at Villa Park last season.

City also allowed Liam Delap to join Ipswich for £20m last summer; he is now linking up with Palmer at Chelsea. Both of them helped City beat Chelsea to the Club World Cup trophy this summer.

The Delap case was a more understandable one. He was never going to outmuscle Erling Haaland out of a City starting spot during his prime years.

But the cases of Palmer, Rogers and now McAtee require more justification – especially given how the club will likely have been planning for how to succeed Kevin de Bruyne as soon as the Belgian hit his 30s three years ago.

Some will justifiably point out that City’s academy has been a good resource for doing exactly that: buying the best players in the world.

Last summer, academy sales hit the £500m total since Guardiola’s arrival in Manchester – not just due to selling the likes of Palmer and Co, but also installing substantial sell-on clauses so City would benefit from their next move. City cannot justify signing the best without selling their best.

But City’s boy infamously became Chelsea’s man with Palmer. Delap can do the same next season, adding to what Rogers has already done.

There can be huge advantages to having a solid academy, but if enough of them aren’t trusted, City have proved that enough of them will come back to haunt you. Time will tell if McAtee is one of those players.

Sky Sports to show 215 live PL games from next season

From next season, Sky Sports’ Premier League coverage will increase from 128 matches to at least 215 games exclusively live.

And 80 per cent of all televised Premier League games next season are on Sky Sports.