Things are not going well at Manchester City yet. Nevertheless, the Guardiola team is leading the Premier League again. The new midfield star should be there on Saturday. Excerpts from City’s game against Fulham will be shown in the sports show on Saturday (from 6 p.m.).
If all the signs are not deceptive, Matheus Nunes will already slip on the Manchester City jersey on Saturday (September 2nd, 2023). The 25-year-old Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder was Pep Guardiola’s dream player. The Spanish coach got his man: City and Wolves agreed on a transfer on Thursday – a transfer fee of 55 million euros is rumored.
Found a replacement for de Bruyne
The English champions are primarily reacting to the injury to playmaker Kevin de Bruyne – the Belgian is likely to be out until December with a hamstring injury. In addition, the team has lost a second important midfield strategist in Ilkay Gündogan (FC Barcelona).
The transfer of Nunes was elementary for City and was pushed through with no holds barred. Nunes also chose the spreading variant strike to confirm his desire to change with the Wolves. He didn’t go to training last week and consequently wasn’t in Wolverhampton’s squad last weekend at Everton.
New six: Matheus Nunes
Back surgery at Guardiola
Incidentally, De Bruyne is not the only prominent failure at City at the moment – it caught the coach himself. Guardiola underwent spinal surgery last week and is in Barcelona for rehabilitation. The coach, who fulfilled all his wishes with City last year and finally won the Champions League with the Skyblues (“I’m calm and immensely relieved. It’s so incredibly difficult to win this trophy”), will be absent until mid-September .
Regardless of this, his club was still heavily involved in the transfer market – on deadline day, there was talk of loan and sale deals for the surplus players such as Joao Cancelo (FC Barcelona), James McAtee (Sheffield United), Taylor Harwood-Bellis (Southampton) and Cole Palmer (Chelsea) negotiated wildly.
Top balance despite the lack of momentum
The fact is that although City have struggled to get going after last season’s great triumphs and their game lacked brilliance, the team won the Supercup (penalty shoot-out against Sevilla) and are back in the Premier League after three games and three wins one.
Saturday’s opponents, Fulham FC, should hardly be a stumbling block for the champions. The guys from Craven Cottage have let center forward Aleksandar Mitrovic move to Saudi Arabia for over 50 million euros, but with Raul Jimenez and Adama Traoré two seasoned offensive players came from Wolverhampton.
Fulham could key players lose
What could be elementary: Midfield six Joao Palhinha could still be lost. The strategically adept Portuguese is at the top of FC Bayern’s wish list and has apparently made his transfer intentions clear. Hardly conceivable that he will still be available to Fulham in Manchester on Saturday.