As Oscar Wilde didn’t quite say: “To lose one winger the week before the season starts may be regarded as misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness”.
Jack Grealish’s long goodbye to Manchester City got Fabrizio Romano’s “Here We Go” treatment on Monday morning — a season-long loan move to Everton in the offing for a player who will surely relish potentially being the face of a new era at Bramley Moore Dock.
There is genuine sadness on both sides, from the player and Pep Guardiola, that things have not worked out as intended over the past two wasteful seasons for Britain’s first £100 million footballer, who became the face of City’s 2023 treble celebrations.
This was billed as a summer of renewal for the 10-time English champions, with Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Ait-Nouri and James Trafford bolstering a squad that was supplemented by Abdukodir Khusanov, Omar Marmoush and Nico Gonzalez in January — all players with their best years ahead of them, much like 21-year-old Brazil winger Savinho. It was also widely assumed by fans that a couple of experienced midfield trio Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan and Mateo Kovacic would follow club great Kevin De Bruyne out of the exit door.
Five days out from City’s Premier League opener against Wolves, Silva is the new club captain and Gundogan and Kovacic are still in situ, albeit with the latter in the treatment room. Savinho, meanwhile, is the subject of transfer interest from Tottenham and is seemingly open to a move to north London. So, what’s going on?
MORE: Is Jack Grealish a good fit for Everton?
Why would Man City sell Savinho?
Well, as of now, they might not.
Romano reported Tottenham opened with a £43.25m (€50m/$58.2m) offer. City rejected this and would need £50m (€57.8m/$67.3m) for a more extensive conversation to ensue.
As a possible indication of Savinho’s market value this summer, Noni Madueke (23) moved from Chelsea to Arsenal in a deal worth £52m, the same amount set aside by Chelsea to bring in one-time City youngster Jamie Gittens from Borussia Dortmund.
GettyI mages
A fee in this region would represent a handy profit on the £30.8m City paid last summer to bring Savinho in from sister club Troyes, via an impressive loan spell in La Liga with fellow CFG outfit Girona.
Entering the bidding with a relatively low-ball offer is not an uncommon tactic and, given Spurs and City are hardly poles apart in their valuations, the most significant information we have so far is that Savinho is open to the move.
This will not have gone unnoticed by Guardiola, whose policy throughout his time in Manchester has been that if a player wants to leave and they bring him an offer the club find acceptable, they can go.
There are a couple of exceptions — notably, Bernardo Silva over a succession of will-he, won’t-he close seasons. Guardiola making representations to keep Kyle Walker away from Bayern Munich paid off as he lifted a record fourth successive Premier League title in 2023/24. The experienced England defender bailing on City’s nightmare 2024/25 with a mid-season loan switch to AC Milan meant there was a less edifying side to that coin.
If anything, the Walker experience might give Guardiola cause to double down on his instinct that once a player has thought about leaving, they’re basically out of the door. Savinho moving at this stage would feel akin to when Ferran Torres joined Barcelona in January 2022 after 18 promising months in Manchester, or Julian Alvarez’s club-record sale to Atletico Madrid last year.
Like Savinho, both were players Guardiola admired and wanted to keep, but he did not stand in their way once it became clear they wished to leave.
MORE: Savinho switch underlines Pep Guardiola’s new tactical reality at Man City
Should Man City sell Savinho?
Doubling your money on a player who scored three times in 48 appearances across all competitions for Manchester City last season feels like a no-brainer. Savinho also racked up 3,087 minutes across those outings, meaning a lack of first-team opportunities can’t be a legitimate source of disquiet, as it is for the exit-bound James McAtee.
But he is also some years away from the anticipated peak of most elite wingers and there were things to like in his wider play. Only Jeremy Doku attempted more dribbles (216) and made more progressive carries (239) than Savinho (161 and 172) across all competitions last term, as per Opta, while only the ever-tenacious Silva (28) won back possession more often in the final third than the Brazilian (27).
The paltry goals haul is also offset by 11 assists. Six of those were for Erling Haaland, a link-up that should not be underplayed after De Bruyne’s departure and at a time when City’s No. 9 has not seemed to gel easily with the other support attackers in Guardiola’s squad.
However, that brings us to another significant factor: there are an awful lot of support attackers. If Savinho were to join Grealish and (presumably) McAtee in leaving the Etihad Stadium this month, Guardiola would still have Doku, Phil Foden, Rayan Cherki, Omar Marmoush and Oscar Bobb as options to play flanking Haaland.
It’s true that Doku is the only out-and-out winger of that group, but Guardiola’s use of narrow wide attackers during the closing months of last season and the Club World Cup, the addition of attacking left-back Rayan Ait-Nouri and persistence with Matheus Nunes at right-back suggests the ploy of width being provided by the wide defenders is one he will turn to again.
This crowded assortment underlines how City let their normally exemplary squad planning slide after the treble, and a lack of clarity might be part of the reason Savinho is attracted to the Spurs move. By the same token, openness to a transfer at a time when the role of Haaland’s main provider is up for grabs is unlikely to play well with his manager.
There’s also the more prosaic requirement of meeting UEFA’s stipulation of 17 non-homegrown players in a 25-man Champions League squad. Even if Claudio Echeverri departs on loan as expected and third-choice goalkeeper Stefan Ortega find a new club, Guardiola would still have 18 players in this category.
Savinho would not have been anyone’s first choice as the player to make way, and reports emerging on Monday linking City with Real Madrid’s Rodrygo and RB Leipzig’s Xavi Simons if he leaves suggest Guardiola and director of football Hugo Viana might still have designs on trimming the fat elsewhere.
Whatever happens, it’s definitely unusual to see Guardiola’s City with so many potentially moving parts this close to the big kick-off.
How much did Man City pay for Savinho?
Man City paid a reported £30.8 million (€35.7/$41.5m) for Savinho when they signed him from Troyes in July 2024.
He signed a five-year contract worth a basic £40,000 (€46,400/$53,850) per week, according to Capology.
