Manchester City's full-back Joao Cancelo is about to join Bayern on loan and, according to Romano, has a buyout clause of €70 million in his contract. As we all know, he was originally Pep Guardiola's love player, but why was he suddenly purged by the team?
Joao Cancelo's role at Manchester City
Cancelo can play right-back and left-back, excellent footwork, good passing skills, outstanding assists and, more importantly, an important pawn in Pep Guardiola's tactical play: from the wing inward, playing the role of a back back when Manchester City possess the ball; At the same time, his rib crosses are quite accurate.
The statistics show that Joao Cancelo was the only player in the Premier League to have more than 50 steals, shots, passes and scramble last season, and this season's average number of front-court passes per 90 minutes in the Premier League is second only to Kevin De Bruyne, which shows his level and ability.
Last season, Joao Cancelo started all 36 Premier League appearances, contributing 1 goal and 7 assists, and was one of the Blue Moon's absolute workhorses and title-winning heroes. This season, before the World Cup, he started all 16 league games and six of the Champions League group games.
However, after the World Cup, the situation changed abruptly, Cancelo played 3 times, but only played the whole game once, and the other 3 games were on the bench; In 2 games of the FA Cup, he only made one substitute appearance, and only played all the games in the League Cup, which can be said to be reduced from an absolute main player to a rotating substitute.
Why was Cancelo purged?
The rise of Manchester City youngster Lewis is a huge threat to Joao Cancelo, and Guardiola is very bullish on the former. The reduction in playing time made the Portugal international very dissatisfied. In the FA Cup round 4 against Arsenal, when he learned that he would not be able to start, Cancelo was extremely angry and even threatened to leave.
On the training ground, he clashed head-on with Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, completely rupturing the relationship between the manager and irreparably breaking it up. In addition, there were also people in the Manchester City fan forum who broke the news that Joao Cancelo and Phil Foden also had a violent argument, which made him the biggest problem in the Manchester City dressing room at present.
The boss has always been "iron-fisted" in the face of such a player who challenges his authority, so Joao Cancelo was soon loaned out and will probably never return to Manchester City.
What about the impact on Manchester City and Bayern?
After the loss of Joao Cancelo, Manchester City also have Kyle Walker, Lewis, Ake and Gomes in the full-back position, and although Laporte and Stones can make cameo appearances, the manpower is still relatively tight, especially against multi-front.
After Bayern got Cancelo, they were able to fly on both wings, and the strength of the back line was further enhanced, plus Alfonso Davis, Upamecano and De Ligt, the total value of the four reached a staggering 270 million euros, the most expensive in football!
In addition, there are Blind, Lucas, Pavard, Mazraoui, Stanisic and others, and the bench thickness is amazing. Among them, the position of France international Pavard is the most threatened, but according to German media reports, Bayern do not plan to release him in the winter window.