From Jack Harrison to Brahim Diaz: How Man City have made a fortune selling fringe players

Paul Macdonald

• Updated: 23 Jul 2022 17:34 BST
• 3 min read

Manchester City are a side known for their big spending, having broken the British transfer record in the summer of 2020 to sign Jack Grealish from Aston Villa.

But while they undoubtedly work towards the top-end of the market to strengthen their first team, they also make numerous smaller deals to keep their income ticking nicely over.

Here are some examples of the smart work that City have done in the recent past.

Gavin Bazunu (2022, €14m, Southampton)

Highly rated Bazunu cost City just €500k from Shamrock Rovers in 2019 but after starring for Ireland at international level his stock has risen to the level that Southampton chose to sign him for €14m.

Bazunu is an excellent goalkeeper and will likely be Southampton’s first choice next season, but to earn 26x your initial investment for a goalkeeper that would never start ahead of Ederson is quite incredible work.

Jack Harrison (2021, €16m, Leeds United)

Harrison has been excellent for Leeds United and it’s a testament to his situation that some people may not even know that he was a Manchester City player and had been for some time.

Leeds had a compulsory option to buy last summer which they duly executed. Harrison has been a perfectly good Premier League player for them, but with City having multiple wide options he was never going to make the grade.

Felix Correia (2020, €10.5m, Juventus)

Correia went to Juventus in a €10.5m deal but went on to play just 12 minutes for them in Serie A before being farmed out to Parma on loan where he made 18 substitute appearances and just three starts last season.

City, therefore, more than doubling their money on the man they paid Sporting €4.6m for just the season before represents another piece of excellent business by City.

Uriel Untuna (2020, €10m, Guadalajara)

Untuna was scouted and picked up at the age of 18 by City and besides spells in the Eredivisie with Groningen, returned to Mexico and ultimately secured a transfer to Guadalajara for €10m in the summer of 2020.

The fact that the 24-year-old has already joined Cruz Azul should be a decent insight into how that move worked out and how well City did from a player who was never going to make the grade.

Brahim Diaz (2020, €17m, Real Madrid)

Diaz has built himself a perfectly reasonable career, particularly now in Serie A where he’s a valuable member of Milan’s squad that won the title in 2021-22.

But given he cost City just €400k and was sold for €17m, it represents another excellent flip from the City group to generate move revenue.

Enes Unal (2017, €14m, Villarreal)

Unal has threatened to become a top-class player but it has never really materialised, and he has bounced around clubs in La Liga including Villarreal, Levante, Valladolid and Getafe.

As such the €3m signing from Bursaspor, who was an investment, nothing more, generating 4x of his value is a good deal all round.