The Manchester City cheat code: how Guardiola has made £200m+ by selling unused players

The Manchester City cheat code: how Guardiola has made £200m+ by selling unused players

 

The Manchester City cheat code: how Guardiola has made £200m+ by selling unused players
Man Utd, Aston Villa, Spurs and Burnley are among those to have spent millions on players Manchester City have sold off for a fortune despite never using.

The following players have all been sold by Manchester City for fees despite them never making a single competitive appearance for the club. Carlos Borges will be next if and when he joins West Ham for £14m.

James Trafford (£15m, Burnley)
The England hero could ultimately cost up to £19m, while Manchester City also retain a 20% sell-on clause and buy-back option thought to be worth triple what Burnley have paid.

 

Yangel Herrera (£4.3m, Girona)
Immediately sent on a two-year loan to New York City FC upon his Etihad arrival in January 2017, Herrera was then sent for seasoning at Huesca, Granada, Espanyol and Girona before setting up permanent camp at the fourth of his many Spanish clubs.

 

Juan Larios (£6m, Southampton)
The Spaniard got as close as a few Papa John’s Trophy appearances to breaking into the Manchester City first team. Which is to say he didn’t get close at all. But Southampton took a punt anyway.

 

Sam Edozie (£10m, Southampton)
Big test here: does the Community Shield count? Because Edozie was named in the starting line-up of the 2021 edition, being subbed after an hour of Leicester’s eventual historic win. Official ruling is glorified friendly, so the brother of Fandab is in.

 

Darko Gyabi (£5m, Leeds)
On the same day Manchester City signed Kalvin Phillips from Leeds, Darko Gyabi travelled in the opposite direction. In the least resounding of wins for the former, he played 593 minutes to the latter’s 157.

 

Gavin Bazunu (£12m, Southampton)
“All of them are fantastic players. Southampton bought really good players,” Guardiola said in summer 2022, duly thanking Saints for their financial service.

Manchester City sold three academy goalkeepers, Gunn, Bazunu and Trafford, for around the same money they paid in transfer fees for Erling Haaland 🤣.
Not a single senior appearance between them for City.
Let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/i1M1hkuGR6

— ThePrestwichMarauder (@MaraudersJFC) July 19, 2023

 

Pedro Porro (£7.6m, Sporting)
“No, I never spoke to Pep Guardiola. I don’t think he even knows they hired me,” Porro said in summer 2021. The £11m signing never played for Manchester City but did feature against them in the Champions League for Sporting, who signed him permanently after a successful loan before flipping that particular house and making a cool profit when Spurs came calling. And a signficiant sell-on clause meant £9m was sent City’s way too.

Ko Itakura (£4.2m, Borussia Monchengladbach)
A heads-up: get used to seeing the phrase ‘was immediately loaned out’ or variations thereof. Itakura was plucked from Kawasaki Frontale in 2019 and offloaded to Groningen and then Schalke for the next three years, only for Gladbach to snatch the defender away.

 

Diego Rosa (£2m, Bahia)
It was sister club Lommel who Rosa was stationed at straight after Manchester City took him from Brazil, where the midfielder returned after just two years to join another sister club in Bahia.

 

Marlos Moreno (£975,000, Troyes)
Once a phenomenal Colombian prospect, seven separate loan spells in five different countries weirdly stunted the development of a player who Txiki Begiristain reckoned had “a fantastic future in the game and with City” in 2016.

 

Ante Palaversa (£1.5m, Troyes)
Another palmed off elsewhere in the City Football Group, Palaversa soon went from potential Fernandinho successor to victim of the loan void.

 

Harvey Griffiths (£350,000, Wolves)
“Harvey’s a player our scouts have been monitoring and when it became apparent he could leave, we were quite surprised,” Wolves director Scott Sellars said of a teenager who had encountered that Etihad glass ceiling.

 

Ivan Ilic (£6.8m, Hellas Verona)
Remember when Manchester City signed Jack Grealish and Harry Kane? Of course you do. This sale made it possible.

 

Jack Harrison (£11m, Leeds)
An alumnus of the Liverpool and Man Utd academies, Harrison made the brave decision to move to the States and soon found himself posted at New York City FC. It is not difficult to join the dots from there, although a three-season taster loan with Leeds before joining permanently was a neat little play on the usual sister team shuffle.

 

Charlie McNeill (£750,000, Man Utd)
After starting out in the Man Utd academy, McNeill left for Manchester City aged 11 in 2014, then returned to Old Trafford six years later because he felt the first-team pathway was clearer.

 

Felix Correia (player exchange, Juventus)
It is quite funny that Manchester City and Juventus traded teenagers Correia and Pablo Moreno in the middle of the pandemic, valued both at £8.9m and secured 10% sell-on clauses, then saw both end up at Maritimo last season. Correia was sent there on loan by The Old Lady, while City accepted defeat and let striker Moreno go for free.

 

Thierry Ambrose (£2.1m, Metz)
A record of 23 goals in 48 games between Manchester City’s U18 and U23 levels was only ever enough for Ambrose to make one Premier League bench in December 2014.

 

Uriel Antuna (£8.2m, Chivas)
A rare example of the wider City Football Group playing no part in low-level upscaling, Antuna was signed from Santos Laguna, abandoned at Groningen and LA Galaxy and sold to Guadalajara, all in under three years.

 

Benjamin Garre (£2m, Racing Club)
“Guardiola called me when I arrived at Racing to wish me the best. I’ve learned a lot from Pep; he’s a top-class coach. I’m very grateful for everything he gave me,” said Garre, who was clearly impressed with the opportunity to train with the first team, play a few pre-season friendlies and feature in the Papa John’s.

 

Jeremie Frimpong (£1m, Celtic)
Between the ages of nine and 18, Frimpong was honed in the Manchester City academy. But actual first-team opportunities with Celtic and Bayer Leverkusen have seen his career launched properly.

 

Douglas Luiz (£12.5m, Aston Villa)
A buy-back clause of £25m was inserted in the summer 2019 sale of Luis but Manchester City never activated it and the Brazilian has gone on to be linked with most of the rest of an established elite Unai Emery is threatening to break up.