Guardiola has Barcelona solution to his BIGGEST transfer headache

Robin Bairner

• 10 Jun 2023 10:25 CDT
• 13 min read

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola either has the hardest or the easiest job this summer when it comes to the transfer market, depending on your perspective.

On one hand, the Etihad boss appears what appears to be close to the perfect team. City continue to dominate the Premier League, despite giving Arsenal a healthy advantage this season, while they won the FA Cup and are hot favourites to lift the Champions League.

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How do you improve upon this? Do City even need to? Guardiola will certainly feel that his side will need to evolve again, just as they did last summer when they signed a pure centre-forward in the form of Erling Haaland – a player who has reaped 52 goals this season.

Guardiola’s greatest headache could surround replacing Ilkay Gundogan, a player who is out of contract at the end of the month, captains the side and appears destined to depart for nothing. Barcelona looks the likely destination.

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It would be unfair to describe the 32-year-old as unsung given the praise he has received for a sequence of clutch performances, the latest of which was a two-goal salvo against Manchester United in the FA Cup final, but there remains a sense that the former Borussia Dortmund player’s influence on City is still underestimated.

How can Guardiola replace such a player?

Six options to replace Gundogan at Man City

Data analytics experts SciSports suggest it will be tough. Narrowing the search down to players of similar style to Gundogan, notably those who excel in defensive positioning and passing, there are a couple of standout options.

Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong is the outstanding candidate to step into Gundogan’s boots. Of course, capturing a player that Xavi has made central to his side will be no easy task, yet given the Catalans’ financial problems and City’s economic muscle, it would be wrong to dismiss a deal as impossible.

Equally, Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard could be seen as a potential option. The Norway international has enjoyed a stellar season, yet the trend leans more towards him signing a new deal at the Emirates Stadium than completing a transfer.

Arguably, these are the only players capable of stepping into Gundogan’s role seamlessly, although Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Nicolo Barella of Champions League finalists Inter merit a mention here.

If Guardiola wants be patient and mould a player, there are a couple of surprising options in the form of Newcastle’s Joe Willock and Dinamo Moscow prospect Arsen Zakharyan. Both are some way from their peak and would likely take years - or at least months - to come close to Gundogan's level.