Phil Foden had admitted that his lack of game time at the start of his Manchester City career was "difficult".
After years of careful nurturing by Pep Guardiola, Foden is fully realising his potential this season and is enjoying his best campaign to date, with 11 goals and six assists to his name so far.
Foden's talent has never been in doubt since he made his debut for City as a 17-year-old but until this season he was never a regular name in Guardiola's starting XI.
The Blues boss always rejected the notion that the 'Stockport Iniesta' could leave the club on loan, believing that training with City's world class players was best for his development and he has been proven right.
However, Foden has admitted that it was a struggle not playing as much as he wanted at times.
“I’m not going to lie, it was quite difficult not playing as much football as I wanted to," Foden told BT Sport.
"But you know how quality our squad is, it was very hard to play at the time. I kept working hard every day in training, learning different sides of my game. Like you can see this year I’ve become more mature and I’m getting trusted a lot more now."
On Guardiola, he added: “You’ve probably heard a lot of people say this but he improves every player on and off the field. He’s always dead motivated for everyone to do better as well.
"You can probably see on the touchline, if someone makes a mistake, how much he cares about it. That’s just how he is. He just wants everyone to be the best and he looks for perfection but that’s not a bad thing, it pushes everyone to be better every day and he’s the best coach I probably could ever ask for to improve my game. So yeah, very thankful."
After initially coming through the youth ranks as a midfielder and seen as the heir to David Silva's crown, Foden has primarily been deployed on the flanks of the attacking three this season to great effect. Yet the 20-year-old believes his future still lies in midfield.
“Some games I’ve played three different positions," he said. "I can play off the left, off the right, false nine and in the middle. From growing up I’ve always played in one of the 8 and 10 roles so I’d like to see myself hopefully playing there one day.”
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