MANCHESTER City have signed former Wanderers youth product Aaron Mooy on a three-year contract.

The Australia international quit Bolton aged 16 in 2010 after spending just over three years at the club.

He recovered from a serious knee injury to feature prominently in Allan Cork’s reserve team in 2008/9 but refused a deal offered to him the following summer.

Since then he played for St Mirren in Scotland before returning to his homeland and making a name for himself at Western Sydney Warriors and Melbourne City.

He has 16 caps for his country and five goals – and was compared to French legend Zinedine Zidane early in his Wanderers career by former youth team coach Peter Farrell.

“He has got something special about him,” he told The Bolton News in 2009. “He can be really frustrating at times because you never know where he might pop up – he’s always going in search of the ball.

“But he has the talent and the attitude to make it a long way in the game. He just needs to listen, learn and keep working hard.”

Luke Brattan, who came to Wanderers on loan in 2015, has also been loaned to Melbourne from City as part of the deal.