{"id":656648,"date":"2025-07-07T14:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T18:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=656648"},"modified":"2025-07-07T14:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T18:13:07","slug":"manchester-city-nico-gonzalez-transfer-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/07\/07\/manchester-city-nico-gonzalez-transfer-exit\/","title":{"rendered":"‘One to Watch’: \u00a355 Million Signing Could Be Set for Shock Manchester City Exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nico Gonzalez, who joined Manchester City in February 2025 for a fee of around \u00a355 million, could be potentially leave the Etihad Stadium this summer, as per Fabrizio Romano<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nico Gonzalez Could Be Set for Shock City Exit<\/b><\/h2>\n

Departure Not Guaranteed<\/h3>\n

Romano revealed via his YouTube channel that “there is a chance” that the Spaniard could leave already this summer. He made it clear that the departure is not guaranteed and that it would only happen if the club were presented with a “good proposal”. The Cityzens invested a large sum of money in the 23-year-old just five months ago and they should therefore not let him go too quickly.<\/p>\n

Read More: Multiple Overseas Giants \u2018Battling\u2019 to Sign \u2018Frustrated\u2019 \u2018Overlooked\u2019 Manchester City Attacker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Additionally, the Italian journalist did not name any clubs who were potentially interested in the central midfielder, meaning that it could take a while longer for any deal to materialise. The midfielder is currently on holiday as the Sky Blues gave their players some time off after their shock defeat to Al Hilal in the Club World Cup. Romano describes the situation as “one to watch” in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Why Might City Let Him Go?<\/h3>\n

Nico never felt like a player that City wanted to sign, but a player they had to sign. The Cityzens had been increasingly overrun in midfield since Rodri picked up an anterior cruciate ligament injury against Arsenal in September and were in the midst of their worst spell under Pep Guardiola in January.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the Cityzens’ directors did not initially focus on signing a holding midfielder in the winter window. They signed two young centre-backs in Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis as well as a versatile attacker in Omar Marmoush. Nico only joined City on deadline day.<\/p>\n

Read More: <\/strong>Burnley \u2018Closing in On\u2019 \u2018Shock\u2019 Move for Six-Time Premier League Winner<\/a><\/p>\n

It is strange that fans and pundits alike identified City’s weak point very quickly yet the club essentially wasted an entire month before bringing Nico to the club. This perhaps suggests that Guardiola and co. were keen to see if they could survive without signing another defensive midfielder, potentially due to their previous experience with Kalvin Phillips, who was signed as a backup for Rodri but played just 16 times for the Cityzens.<\/p>\n

Nico’s first start for City, against Leyton Orient, sums up the last five months in many ways. In the first few minutes of the game, City looked much more comfortable in possession as the Spaniard was breaking up counterattacks and dictating play well. But, he was caught in possession by Jamie Donley in the 16th minute which resulted in Orient taking the lead. Six minutes after that, he was substituted due to an injury.<\/p>\n

Read More:\u00a0<\/strong>\u2018I Decided\u2019: Pep Guardiola Makes Bold Call at Manchester City<\/a><\/p>\n

City’s number 14 returned a couple of weeks later and started consecutive games against Newcastle United, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. He was solid, if slightly unspectacular in these games, though he did score his first City goal at the Santiago Bernab\u00e9u. It seemed as though Guardiola trusted Nico as he was consistently starting big games. However, he increasingly fell out of favour and only ended up starting nine league games for the Cityzens.<\/p>\n

In the recent Club World Cup, only Oscar Bobb, Claudio Echeverri, who picked up an injury midway through the tournament, and John Stones, played fewer minutes than Nico (only including outfield players). Rodri also returned from his injury, making his first start for Guardiola’s team in nine months, and the Cityzens signed midfielder Tijjani Reijnders from AC Milan ahead of the tournament.<\/p>\n

It seems as though Reijnders has instantly jumped ahead of Nico in the pecking order, making the Spaniard the third-choice defensive midfielder whilst also making him less likely to play in a more advanced role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nico Gonzalez, who joined Manchester City in February 2025 for a fee of around \u00a355 million, could be potentially leave the Etihad Stadium this summer, as per Fabrizio Romano. Nico Gonzalez Could Be Set for Shock City Exit Departure Not Guaranteed Romano revealed via his YouTube channel that “there is a chance” that the Spaniard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5507,"featured_media":653882,"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":[17,30,3,7188],"tags":[100],"class_list":["post-656648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-news","category-premier-league","category-rumours","tag-manchester-city"],"modified_by":"Henry Chung, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656648","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=656648"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656665,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656648\/revisions\/656665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}