It’s difficult to comprehend the change in feeling at Manchester City between the start of the season and now. After the first 10 games the bets were almost off as to who would win the Premier League Pep Guardiola and his men battered everybody in sight as if it was completely effortless.
How different it is now with Manchester City looking far more shaky and having suffered an embarrassing 4-0 defeat at the hands of Everton last weekend.
One thing that is certainly not in short supply at Manchester City is cash and they may well be tempted to dip into the transfer market this month in order to freshen up a squad which looks short of confidence right now.
But The Guardian reports that they may wait until the summer to bring in another A-list talent. And that could be in the shape of Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic.
The brilliant pass master has been a revelation at Barcelona and it is difficult to envisage why they would be prepared to let him leave for Manchester City.
At just 28 years of age Rakitic has already played 83 times for his country Croatia and scored 13 goals.
And he’s been a classy and steady influence at Barcelona too since he signed for them from Sevilla in 2014 with 20 goals in 131 appearances for the club.
He is an all-arounder in the midfield area and couldn’t really be described as and attacking or defensive player. He’s great at shielding the defence but also has super creativity and technique and loves to get forward, as his goal ratio shows.
There’s little doubt that he be an absolute revelation at Manchester City but we would be dubious about whether they would be able to prise him away from the Spanish club at this stage of his career.
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