Pep Guardiola plans to bring Nico Gonzalez as Rodri replacement at Man City: Report

The Spanish midfielder is sidelined for the remainder of the season.

Pep Guardiola will try a third time to recruit Nico Gonzalez, a holding midfielder valued at £50 million, after failing to do so twice when he was still an academy player.

With Rodri out, possibly for the remainder of the season, the Porto star has been touted as the candidate to take over Manchester City’s troublesome position. However, Pep’s side will have to pay top dollar for the Spanish midfielder.

Until his £50.15 million buy-out clause is activated, Portuguese team Porto maintain that they will not sell their top asset.

They also want the majority of the money paid upfront since Barcelona will receive a 40% sell-on fee for the player they sold for around £7 million in 2023.

After transferring Brazilian winger Galeno to Saudi Pro League team Al-Ahli for £45 million, Porto are in a strong negotiating position.

Although Guardiola has long admired Gonzalez. He has traditionally been reluctant to spend enormous sums of money to replace Rodri, the winner of the Ballon d’Or. This is because he believes that two holding midfielders are a waste of one talent. But Pep isn’t going to let him get away with it a third time.

Nico burst onto the scene at Barcelona where he established himself as a promising midfielder but the Catalans were suffering from financial problems and decided to cash in on the player.

When his father joined Guardiola’s backroom staff in 2016, he was encouraged to join City’s academy as a young player, but he chose to play for Barcelona instead. In 2018, he turned down a chance to play for City a second time.

After acquiring Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis, and Omar Marmoush, City have spent more than £173 million in this window.

This evening, City suffered another setback as their travel to the Emirates to play Arsenal ended with a 5-1 defeat. The reigning Premier League champions are 15 points behind table-toppers Liverpool, in fourth position overall.

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