{"id":654773,"date":"2025-05-15T12:28:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T16:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=654773"},"modified":"2025-05-15T12:28:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T16:28:53","slug":"manchester-city-tijjani-reijnders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/05\/15\/manchester-city-tijjani-reijnders\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Opening Bid\u2019 in the \u2018Coming Weeks\u2019: Manchester City Set to Accelerate Pursuit for Midfield Target"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester City will submit their opening bid for AC Milan midfielder Tijjani Reijnders in the coming weeks, reports Fabrizio Romano<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Manchester City to Submit Bid for Tijjani Reijnders<\/span><\/h2>\n

Who Is Tijjani Reijnders?<\/span><\/h3>\n

Reijnders<\/a> has enjoyed a rapid rise through world football in the last few seasons, gaining world fame slightly later than many players do in the modern day. When the midfielder made his professional debut for PEC Zwolle at the beginning of the 2017\/18 season, he was still working in a local Aldi<\/a> alongside playing football.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0Manchester City ‘Reach Agreement’ to Sign German International<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Dutchman moved to AZ Alkmaar during the same season and played once for the AZ first team, registering an assist. He spent two-and-a-half seasons playing for Jong AZ, Alkmaar’s youth team who play in the Dutch men’s second tier.<\/p>\n

His first season as an established first-team player for the Kaaskoppen came in the 2021\/22 campaign. Reijnders made 34 league appearances and scored four goals, but most of these appearances came from the bench as he played just 1200 minutes in the league.<\/p>\n

The 2022\/23 season was his breakout campaign as he made 54 appearances for AZ, registering a combined total of 17 goals and assists. This earned him a move to AC Milan and he was a regular starter for the Italian giants last season, but he scored just three goals.<\/p>\n

This year, the Dutchman has become one of the Rossoneri’s key players, making 53 appearances and scoring 16 goals to date.<\/p>\n

Why Do Manchester City Want Him?<\/span><\/h3>\n

Problems in midfield have been seen as the root of City’s struggles this season. It is an area which they have already strengthened with the signing of Nico Gonzalez in January, but the rest of their midfield options are either ageing or inexperienced: Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan and Matteo Kovacic are all over thirty whilst Rico Lewis and Nico O’Reilly are both 20 years of age.<\/p>\n

Reijnders’ age profile is ideal for Pep Guardiola’s men as he offers the perfect blend of energy and experience, having made over 200 appearances in top-flight football and over 100 appearances for an elite-level club in Milan.<\/p>\n

Read More: <\/span><\/strong>Manchester City Ready to Battle Premier League Rivals for \u2018Exceptional\u2019 Brazilian Defender<\/a><\/p>\n

Another less spoken-about problem for City this campaign has been their overreliance on Erling Haaland as a source of goals. The Norwegian has scored 30 times this season, but the only other player in double figures for the campaign is Phil Foden.<\/p>\n

Reijnders has scored more league goals and has more xG than 98.5% of Serie A midfielders this campaign, meaning he would be the perfect goalscoring number eight to replace Gundogan, who is in the twilight of his career.<\/p>\n

The Dutch international undoubtedly has areas that he will need to work on if he wants to become a star under Guardiola: he has been dispossessed a staggering 0.95 times per 90 and he wins a low percentage of duels and tackles, but there are key aspects to his game which could see him thrive in Manchester.<\/p>\n

How May This Transfer Story Develop?<\/span><\/h3>\n

Romano reports that Reijnders’ main focus is on finishing the current season with Milan as well as possible. The Rossoneri recently lost the Coppa Italia final and are embroiled in a tight race for European qualifications which could see them finish as high as fourth or as low as ninth.<\/p>\n

The Italian journalist also noted that City were delaying their bid out of respect for Reijnders’ wishes and that the Citizens see the Dutchman as their number one target for the number eight position. Meanwhile, Sacha Tavolieri<\/a>\u00a0said that Reijnders has a ‘preference’ to join the blue side of Manchester and that broad discussions over personal terms have already been opened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manchester City will submit their opening bid for AC Milan midfielder Tijjani Reijnders in the coming weeks, reports Fabrizio Romano. Manchester City to Submit Bid for Tijjani Reijnders Who Is Tijjani Reijnders? Reijnders has enjoyed a rapid rise through world football in the last few seasons, gaining world fame slightly later than many players do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5507,"featured_media":654335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1363,3,7188,5],"tags":[100],"class_list":["post-654773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-ac-milan","category-premier-league","category-rumours","category-serie-a","tag-manchester-city"],"modified_by":"Henry Chung, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5507"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654773"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654794,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654773\/revisions\/654794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}