Manchester City Interested in Signing Teenage Sensation Joao Felix?

Despite some ongoing amnesia regarding stories of imminent transfer bans, newspapers have linked Manchester City with a record breaking bid for the Portuguese sensation.

One minute newspapers are reporting Manchester City are going to be hit with a 2 window transfer ban and the next they report we are linked with a transfer record bid for a player. Make your minds up for goodness sake – it can’t be both!

Joao Felix is a Portugese player who has broken into the Benfica starting XI this season and already pundits have excitedly linked him to being the new Messi. In fact it has reached the point where every single player linked to us is described as the new Messi, even the goalkeepers! (As a point of order I would still quite like to sign the old Messi!)

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He plays as an old fashioned inside forward, a secondary striker in modern systems and has looked increasingly confident in each passing game. His performances have drawn scouts from across Europe and resulted in Benfica striking a new contract with him already. This new contract reportedly has a buy out fee of €104 million, hence the fact we know any interest in the player is likely to break our transfer record.

So far this season Felix has made 32 appearances for Benfica during which he has scored 12 goals and achieved 6 assists.

Whilst he looks to be an interesting player I still believe there are a number of other positions which are of more importance to us in the coming transfer window. These include a new left back, defensive midfielder and potentially a new centre back.

Adding another midfielder to our squad would I think depend upon the contract situation with Ilkay Gundogan. If he is staying with us I cannot see us adding attacking options this summer.

The only way this would alter would be if we knew we were to suffer a transfer ban and subsequently decided to bring forward our future transfer spending. It is no secret that Aguero and Silva are entering the twilight phase of their City careers and plans would ordinarily be made to replace these players in 2021/22. Although of course if Foden continues to develop at his current rate we may actually not need any replacement for Silva.

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So, Felix is exactly the kind of player we would expect to be linked with. A young player of great raw ability with potential to be coached to greatness. Would he get in our side now? Unlikely and the rumoured price tag means he would not be loaned back to another club. So, I tend to view this rumour in the pigs might fly category.

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