Red, Yellow and Green: Looking at Manchester City’s Potential Transfers

Toure and Milner celebrate the first goal against Swansea (via Manchester City Facebook)

As the summer transfer window approaches, every team’s roster can be divided into three categories: players who very likely to be sold, players who could be sold, and players that are highly unlike to be sold. Let’s take a look at who falls into each category for City’s roster, using a nifty bit of color coding. Players who are very likely to be sold will be red, players who could be sold will be yellow, and players that are highly unlikely to be sold are green. 

Red

Edin Dzeko: While Dzeko has scored his fair share of important goals for City throughout his career, it looks like his time at City is approaching it’s end. His form has been in decline this season, scoring 0.38 goals per 90 minutes after last season’s rate of 0.72. There’s also the matter of Wilfried Bony, who was brought in with the intentions of replacing Dzeko. Dzeko’s heading ability and target man play style is still something lots of teams are interested in, so City shouldn’t have much trouble offloading him. The Daily Mail reports that Brendan Rodgers is rumored to want him at Anfield.

Aleksandar Kolarov: City’s singing Serbian hasn’t been Manuel Pellegrini’s first choice left back this season, as Gael Clichy has received more appearances. City will be looking to get younger and better at left back and Kolarov will likely be the one to go as a result. His improved form to end the season should make him more appealing to other teams, particularly Inter.

James Milner: Milner has been a useful and valuable player to City in his time at the club. He has been versatile and highly consistent. But with Milner’s contract soon to expire, he is looking for a team that offers him more minutes and higher wages. Liverpool and Arsenal are both very keen on him.

Samir Nasri: City’s pursuit of Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Gareth Bale means they are most certainly in the market for a new CAM. And that means that they’ll be looking to offload a CAM, and that CAM is Nasri. While his Roma goal was a season-defining moment, his key passes and goals for City have both dropped off. Amusingly enough, Roma is a potential destination for him.

Yaya Toure: Toure is the most obvious one of these. His play has declined this season and Inter is making their interest in the Ivorian very public. City will be more than happy to offload him as they try to pursue Paul Pogba or another midfielder to replace him.

Yellow

Willy Caballero: Caballero didn’t exactly set the world on fire in his limited appearances backing up Joe Hart. He allowed 12 goals in 7 appearances in all competitions, and only kept a single clean sheet. However as Malaga’s starting GK in 2013-14, he started every La Liga game with 12 clean sheets. A team looking to get an experienced goalkeeper for cheap could very easily swoop up Caballero.

Gael Clichy: A new left back will one of City’s priorities this transfer window. Kolarov looks more likely than Clichy to be sold, as Clichy was preferred to Kolarov this season. However, if a team finds Clichy much more appealing than Kolarov, City won’t have much hesitation to pull the trigger.

Fernandinho: City hasn’t expressed much interest in selling Fernandinho and there are currently no rumors about other teams looking at the Brazilian international. Fernandinho sits in the yellow because he is not totally irreplaceable for City and a strong offer from someone would certainly tempt the team.

Stevan Jovetic: Jovetic is really toeing the line between yellow and red. He sits in the yellow due to the fact he is only 25 and still hasn’t had a chance to prove what he can do with an injury-free season. Other teams are interested in him and he would probably like to play for a team where he isn’t third on the pecking order. But City will want to give him another season before they cut their losses.

Jesus Navas: City’s pacey winger was a useful if not amazing player for City this season, appearing in 34 games and offering up eight assists. Navas is in the same boat as Fernandinho: he hasn’t expressed any interest in leaving, City hasn’t expressed any interest in selling him and there isn’t any team hotly perusing him. But Navas is hardly irreplaceable and City won’t have much issue parting ways if they thought it was a good value.

Fernando Reges: Fernando’s first season wasn’t much to write home about. Despite that, City will likely want more than one season before they want to cut their losses on the Brazilian holding midfielder. But as Gareth Barry, Nigel de Jong and Javi Garcia have demonstrated, City’s CDM’s are easy to find and easy to replace.

Green 

Sergio Aguero: Sergio Aguero was Manchester City’s best player last season and his four seasons at City have all been excellent. While there are seemingly always whispers that Real Madrid would like him, Aguero has expressed no desire to leave City and City’s transfer budget means they are one of the few teams in the world who aren’t easily tempted by Real’s big bucks.

Wilfried Bony: City only bought Bony this winter. Selling Bony after only 273 Premier League minutes would be absolute lunacy and simply will not happen.

Martin Demichelis: Demichelis’ transition from scapegoat and liability to a solid and reliable centerback over the course of two seasons is quite impressive. Kompany and Mangala each have problems with inconsistency, so Demichelis’ consistency and steadiness will be something City will want to hold on to. It’s also hard to imagine many teams wanting to buy a 34-year-old centerback who will be a free transfer at the end of next summer.

Joe Hart: After inconsistency that led to him briefly being benched last year, Joe Hart has been one of City’s most valuable players. He is also fan favorite, being the first choice goalkeeper for England. He will most likely be the captain for City whenever Kompany leaves, as he is a vocal leader within the squad.

Vincent Kompany: There is absolutely no chance Manchester City sells their captain. There is absolutely no chance Manchester City’s captain wants to be sold. That is all that needs to be said about Vincent Kompany.

Eliaquim Mangala: Mangala is a long term project for City, as he was bought to be the center back of both the present and future for City. Additionally, there’s hardly a team in the world that would be comfortable with the value they’d get from the transfer, as City would surely want a fee higher than the one they offered Porto last season.

Bacary Sagna: Sagna’s career is already in decline and really didn’t rival Zabaleta for play time this season. While City certainly wouldn’t mind getting rid of Sagna, it’s hard to see any team that would be interested in paying for him, especially considering that City got him on a free.

David Silva: Silva is the man who makes City’s offense click. While Aguero might be a better player, City’s offense falls into disarray much faster if the Spanish passing maestro isn’t there. He is too valuable to City’s attack for City to sell him any time soon.

Pablo Zabaleta: Zabaleta, like Kompany, was a part of City before the big money came in. He has absolutely no reason to want out of City and seeing as though he has been a steady rock in City’s backline at RB, City has no reason to want to offload him either.