In total, Man City dominated the winter transfer window, spending up to 218 million USD on players in January 2025, the most of any other club in Europe. This shows that the chaos of coach Pep Guardiola is real, facing the need to strengthen the squad to stop the increasingly serious decline this season.
Coach Pep Guardiola and his students must face strong rivals Real Madrid in the Champions League play-off round
Man City took urgent action immediately after the shocking 1-5 loss to Arsenal on February 3, to bring in 23-year-old midfielder Nico Gonzalez from Porto.
This is a Spanish player, who grew up in Barcelona's La Masia academy and joined the first team in 2021. After 37 matches for the Catalan team in the 2021-2022 season, Nico Gonzalez lost his place and had to go to Valencia on loan, before being transferred to Porto for a fee of only 9 million USD in July 2023.
In this deal, Barcelona holds 40% of Nico Gonzalez's future transfer value, according to The Athletic (UK). Therefore, when this player was interested by Man City and decided to recruit him on the last day of the winter transfer window (February 4), Barcelona received a surprise gift of about 25 million USD in the fee of up to 62 million USD of the deal.
Manager Pep Guardiola was forced to buy Nico Gonzalez, after witnessing Man City suffer a comprehensive defeat against Arsenal due to the absence of key midfielder Rodri for the rest of the season due to a serious injury.
This coach believes that the timely presence of Nico Gonzalez will help solve the difficult problem of Rodri's long absence, and at the same time help Man City return to the competition in the Premier League and especially the upcoming 2 Champions League play-off matches with rival Real Madrid.
Will Nico Gonzalez become Man City's savior?
Before Nico Gonzalez, Man City recruited striker Omar Marmoush ($77 million from Eintracht Frankfurt), Abdukodir Khusanov ($41 million from Lens) and Vitor Reiss ($38 million from Palmeiras) to strengthen their squad.
Of these, only Marmoush has played two consecutive matches recently, but has not scored any goals despite having many opportunities. Center back Khusanov of the Uzbekistan team has only played one match, but made a mistake leading to a goal and had to sit on the bench. Reiss has not had a chance to play.
With Nico Gonzalez, Man City is rushing to register him in the competition list, but it will also be a headache for coach Pep Guardiola when deciding which of the 3 players allowed to be changed, to put this player in the squad to compete in the Champions League.
Nico Gonzalez has a chance to play in the FA Cup fourth round when Man City face Leyton Orient this weekend. Then there is a nightmare run of games for the "City", including two Champions League play-off matches against Real Madrid, and Premier League games against Newcastle, Liverpool, Tottenham and Nottingham Forest.
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/thua-soc-arsenal-man-city-khuynh-dao-ky-chuyen-nhuong-185250204095541227.htm
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