Manchester City have acquired the services of Nico Gonzalez from FC Porto to wrap up a busy January 2025 transfer window in which they spent a whopping £180 million on transfers.
This spending is seen as a response to claims that the club was going to back down from strengthening their side while they were dealing with allegations of financial impropriety. The case judgment has been expected for weeks now and the possible punishments include relegation, which means that the club would have to sell their key assets instead of acquiring new ones.
Now, they have Omar Marmoush, the German Bundesliga’s best player and leading scorer in the 2024/25 season, Abdukodir Khusanov, one of the French Ligue 1’s most promising centrebacks, Vitor Reis from Palmeiras in Brazil, Juma Bah from LaLiga, who was loaned to Khusanov’s former club to replace the Uzbek defender for the rest of the season, and Gonzalez, who comes in to strengthen their midfield.
Gonzalez was brought in for £50 million from Porto in the Portuguese first division which officially made Manchester City the second biggest spenders in history in the winter transfer window, according to Transfermarkt.
Marmoush was brought in for £59 million from Eintracht Frankfurt for four-and-a-half years, Khusanov for £33.5 million from RC Lens for four-and-a-half years, Reis from Palmeiras for £29.6 million for four-and-a-half years, and Bah for next to nothing as the young SIerra Leonian paid his own release clause to ensure that City would be free to sign him for free.
Gonzalez is seen as Rodri’s replacement, just as he was seen as the next best thing after Sergio Busquets at Barcelona before the Catalans decided to ship him out to Porto via a Valencia loan spell. However, Sky Sports’ pundit Paul Merson believes that City have made a panic buy.
“I’ve not seen this lad play, so I don’t know too much about him,” Merson began. “But they need players in midfield. A lot of people say it’s not just Rodri. It is just Rodri.
“Rodri sees danger, Rodri is disciplined, Rodri stays in the center, he gets forward and sits back and protects the backline as well, and he passes the ball through the line very quickly.
“I like Mateo Kovacic, but he will go over and dribble with the ball and people end up all out of position. He and Bernardo Silva got ruined in the last 30 minutes at Arsenal.
“If you take away the 30 minutes and first 20, City were very good at Arsenal. It was a good away performance.
“The issue is that Gonzalez comes in for £50m, as soon as Rodri’s fit, that’s it. I don’t think he plays. Unless you play them together and I don’t think you need to.
“This is the problem with wages and buying players, you forget that by the start of next season, this guy is sitting on the bench with big money. You then look at James McAtee with a brilliant future and they will have to sell him for the fair play rules. It’s a knock-on effect. If they buy Gonzalez, they must be panicking badly to get into the top four.”
