Men’s city prepares £87 million for “world-class” progress

Will Manchester City make another statement before the start of the Premier League season?

The recently abandoned champions have already spent a lot of work on five recruits this summer, with James Trafford, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders and Sverre Nypan costing over £155 million.

It was January that Pep Guardiola, who spent nearly £200 million, brought Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov, Nico González, Juma Bah and Vitor Reis to January.

Now, with the citizens’ only pre-season friendly friendly match, with Palermo, another club owned by City Football Group, held Saturday night at Stadio Renzo Barbera, will they get the third highest expensive signing in club history, behind Jack Grealish and Joško Gvardiol?

Manchester City targets new attackers

Of course, Manchester City himself does have Erling Braut Håland, but one problem last season was that, as shown in the table below, no one else was scoring.

As the table outlines, Holland was the only human city player to score last season’s Premier League goal.

21 players across the division achieved this, with Brighton, Brentford, Chelsea, Liverpool, Bournemouth and Wolves seeing multiple players.

Jérémy Doku’s output in particular was disappointing, with only 14 goals in 84 appearances since Rennes arrived at Rennes, with a £55.5 million costing two summers ago.

So when they targeted the upgrade, Spanish reports said that Manchester City were preparing a 100 million euro (about £87 million) bid to sign AC Milan’s Rafael Leão, noting that he would “add additional explosiveness” for Guardiola’s striker.

Florian Plettenberg of Sky Sports Deutschland had previously reported that Leão “informed” Milan’s wish in eighth place in Serie A last season and was therefore unable to compete in any European competition.

Bayern Munich was allegedly the leader in signing Portugal International, but, after Luis Díaz moved to Bavaria, it was no longer at the table, could Leão exchange Milan for Manchester?

Rafael Leão will bring to Manchester City

Leão, 26, moved to Milan from Lille in 2019, won Scudetto in 2020/21, scoring 70 goals and 62 assists in 260 appearances in IL DIAVOLO.

Analyst Ben Mattinson asserted that he was a “world-class” game changer, adding that Leon was an “elite striker” and Sports Illustrated’s James Cormack agreed, describing him as “superstar talent”, who is the “superstar talent” of superstars, noting that he was “absolute electrification” throughout the flight.

Meanwhile, Christopher Winter, a comprehensive football analysis, recorded his “just effective” in the spread and indoor drift, being able to occupy the entire Left River by himself.

Aaron Barton of Opta analyst agreed to invite teammate Alexis Saelemaekers to label “direct, aggressive and proficient”, asserting that Leon “can win ballon d’OR.”

So will he represent Doku’s upgrade? Let’s correct the numbers to find out.

As a desk file, even though he has played more time in the past two seasons, Leon is obviously more productive than Doku.

The Portuguese winger scored more goals and received more assists, while a higher percentage of his shot found the target, creating more than twice the big chance that Opta defines.

According to FBREF.com, Doku remains the King, ranking the highest in the top five in Europe in the past two seasons, but has very little production.

So if Man City can join Leão, even if such a deal will cost a lot of money, he could be the one who lifts them back to the Premier League supremacy.