Man City braced for exodus after Champions League final

Stuart Telford

10 Jun 2023 12:26 BST
3 min read

Manchester City, Pep Guardiola, Erling Haaland — © ProShots

Manchester City could be set for something of a mass exodus after the Champions League final, according to various reports.

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While some players could hardly be safer at the Etihad - Erling Haaland has 52 goals in 52 games and a five-year contract ahead of Saturday's meeting with Inter Milan at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul - this might be his last game with a number of teammates.

Ilkay Gundogan is out of contract at the end of June and has been repeatedly linked with a move to Barcelona, if not Saudi Arabia, while the club could cash in on others as they look to balance the books against the backdrop of UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules.

READ: European Golden Shoe 2022/23: Haaland triumphs over Kane and Mbappe

Manager Pep Guardiola is also ready to sell the likes of Joao Cancelo, whom he fell out with last year before allowing him to finish the season on loan at Bayern Munich.

Pep: 'Those who don't follow me…'

"Have good players," he answered when asked the key to his success ahead of the Inter game. "Have [Lionel] Messi in the past, have Haaland now. This is my success. I'm not joking.

Haaland picking up the ref’s vanishing spray during the game. Football is too easy for this man 😂 pic.twitter.com/FYfjxI3n52
— Football Transfers (@Transfersdotcom) October 6, 2022

"[But] let them feel that alone they cannot do it, together we are a strong team. We have the same idea. The guys who follow me will be here, the guys who don't won't be here…"

READ: Giggs in, Grealish out: Man City 2023 and Man Utd 1999 combined XI

Cancelo has also been linked with a move to Barcelona but the Portuguese is still under contract until June 2027 and valued at €55.6m by FootballTransfers' in-house algorithm - a figure Arsenal are more equipped to meet than Barca.

Of Saturday's likely starters, Bernardo Silva has also been linked with Barca, Kyle Walker Aston Villa, and, latterly, Riyadh Mahrez with a big-money move to Saudi Arabia.

Whom Guardiola and Co. allow to leave remains to be seen, but as evidenced last summer with Arsenal's double purchase of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko and Raheem Sterling's departure to Chelsea, very few players are untouchable in the blue half of Manchester.

Saturday could be a celebration, but also a goodbye.