First Lionel Messi, now Harry Kane. Coach Pep Guardiola is getting used to not being able to sign his main goals at Manchester City and, make no mistake, he believes that not signing Kane is more detrimental to his club’s hopes of success than his inability to persuade. Messi to leave Barcelona 12 months ago.
Messi has always been a vanity project for City, an opportunity to boost the club’s popularity worldwide by getting him possibly the best player of all time. However, Harry was a necessity, and his decision to stay with the Spurs leaves Guardiola with less than six days in the transfer window to find someone capable of scoring the goals he hoped the 28-year-old would deliver. this season.
City will try to move forward quickly after disappointment with Kane’s decision not to leave the Spurs and play with Premier League champions. Manchester is obliged to do so. With the all-time leading scorer of all time, Sergio Agüero, leaving City for Barcelona at the end of his contract earlier this summer, Guardiola needs to find a world-class center-forward to fill the gap. Kane was the only serious candidate in the eyes of the strategist.
But despite making it clear as early as May that he wanted to leave the Spurs to win major titles, a huge gap between City and Spurs in the fee required to sign Kane has been key to the operation not materializing. The Spurs wanted 150 million (pounds sterling), City were reluctant to exceed 100 million (pounds sterling) and has left last season’s Premier League winners struggling to find alternatives in the last week of the window of transfers.
Thanks to the City’s immense wealth due to the fortune of its owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed in the Nahian, it would be foolish to rule out his prospects of doing great business between today and next Tuesday, the last day of the Winter Market. But whoever the player they end up signing will not be Kane and that means Guardiola’s project for this season could be at risk.
No signing has guaranteed success, but Kane was had a real chance of meeting expectations. His incredible consistency with the Tottenham shirt has seen him score 20 or more Premier League goals in five of the last seven seasons. He scored 17 and 18 goals respectively in both campaigns when he failed to reach the 20 mark, so Guardiola and City knew they could wait.
With a team that creates as many opportunities as City, feeding on centers and passes from Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish, Phil Foden, Riad Mahrez and many others, Kane would have seen his goal-scoring opportunities increase with the game. blue t-shirt. And Guardiola would have the security of having a star who knows the Premier League, as well as one who is able to play in a three-man front line, as a lone striker or even as a “10”. Guardiola demands versatility from his players and Kane has that in abundance.
Aside from the habit of suffering injuries that leave him with no chance of playing for part of the season, it is difficult to find any inconvenience in Kane as a player, which is why Guardiola was so determined to sign as the replacement for Omen. But after announcing he will now stay at the Spurs, Kane has left City and Guardiola with a major problem. With Agüero out and Gabriel Jesús without the quality needed to lead the City’s offensive line as a scorer, Guardiola must devise Plan B, and fast.
So what are the City’s options? Two obvious solutions have already been labeled on the list with the signing of Messi by Paris Saint-Germain and Romelu Lukaku leaving Inter Milan for Chelsea.
If City had known a month ago that Kane would stay in the Spurs, it is inconceivable to think that they would not have used the funds set aside to make a move for Messi, but that boat has already set sail. City could now enter the race for Kylian Mbappé, a player always qualified high by Guardiola, and try to surpass the offer of 160 million euros from Real Madrid for the PSG striker, but Mbappé and Real have been flirting for so long that it’s hard to imagine Mbappé leaving Paris for a destination other than Madrid.
Erling Haaland of Borussia Dortmund is another option, but Chelsea tried and failed to persuade the Norwegian striker, or his club, this summer and in all likelihood favor the 21-year-old to stay at Signal Iduna Park one more season and then come out in 2022 when its € 75 million release clause is activated.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Juventus are open to negotiations, but apart from the 36-year-old’s connection to Manchester United, it is debatable whether the ball is enough for a Guardiola team. Aside from versatility, Guardiola demands a high ethic of defensive work from all of his players. Ronaldo, despite all his scoring qualities, is not one of those who put pressure on rival defenses.
Robert Lewandowski of Bayern Munich is a potential choice. Guardiola worked successfully with the Polish striker when he was Bayern coach, and Lewandowski has hinted that he would like to leave the Bundesliga champions. At 33, he still has a lot to offer and will contribute goals and work pace wherever he goes, but City could decline to pay a high sum of money for a player over 30.
So that leaves Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Lautaro Martinez, two players who are available because their clubs, Arsenal and Inter, need to cash in.
Aubameyang, 32, is a proven Premier League top scorer, while Martinez has impressed with Inter and would probably have signed for Barcelona last year had it not been for the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic .
At 24, Martinez would be a better long-term option, but Aubameyang is a Premier League striker ready to use with a proven track record, although he has Ronaldo’s profile when it comes to offensive work. But that’s the problem City has after Kane’s decision to stay with the Spurs. They need a solution, but none of them are as perfect as Kane would have been.
Without a striker, City will have a hard time retaining the Premier League title or winning the Champions League. There’s a lot at stake and Kane has given them very little time to do anything about it.