Marcello Trotta exclusive: The Man City mega change; Brentford pride

Marcello Trotta has come a long way from when, as a teenager, he was signed and then cast out of the Manchester City academy after just three months. Despite this, the striker went on to carve out an impressive career and play top flight football in England and his native Italy.

Trotta's time at City coincided with the arrival of Sheikh Mansour as owner of the Manchester club and, in just a few months, saw the earliest seeds of the global superpower it is today planted. He explained to Tribalfootball.com: "When I was there the new owners came and it could be sensed that their project was ambitious and very serious. They wanted to make City one of the best teams in the world.

“Every year they try to get better in every sector and they have the best coach in the world. They are doing great things and the best aspect of the club is that they are always hungry to get better and to win more and more."

City are going for an unprecedented fourth Premier League title in a row. How does Trotta see the Premier League concluding?

"It is a spectacular league. For me, it is so far distant [in superiority] from the other leagues. Every weekend you can expect that the so-called weak teams can beat the strongest teams and every weekend they offer a spectacle. Three squads [Arsenal, Liverpool and City] are fighting for the title and three or four other teams are fighting to get into the Champions League, so everything is up for discussion for me until the last minute of the season."

After leaving City, Trotta was quickly snapped up by Fulham, where he made his Premier League debut at 19. At the Cottagers, he had loan spells at Wycombe Wanderers, Watford, Brentford and Barnsley. How does he value his time in England?

“It was an honour for me