Nicolas Otamendi To Leave Manchester City

News has been confirmed from a couple of sources in the last few days that Otamendi is looking to leave Manchester City this season.

Since signing for Manchester City, Nicolas Otamendi has been an important addition to our side. Initially it is fair to say he was not a firm favourite amongst the fans.

City fans seemed to feel he was inclined to rush into challenges resulting in many memes on social media which showed humourous clattering tackles. Although he joined with a reputation of scoring goals, at City it seemed as though he would never score. One Twitter account even posted his last goal every day for over a year until he ended his goal drought.

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However under Guardiola, Otamendi honed his skills and began to reach performance levels many felt were beyond him. An impressive stalwart in our record breaking season as Centurions, it seemed as though he may be the answer to our defensive woes after all.

Since the takeover of City by Sheikh Mansour there have been many attempts to shore up the defence. Otamendi was initially perceived by fans as another  make shift defender but we all changed our minds as he started to look more and more solid.

Otamendi joined City from Valencia for a fee of  £40 million. He is under contract at City until June 2022. Since joining he has made 169 appearances and has even scored 8 goals. Amazingly he has somehow achieved a total of 4 assists at City too!

Defensively he was never the quickest, and he has always been prone to a rash challenge, however Guardiola crafted him into a great player.  Fans learned to love the physical and hard challenges from Nico and in the few occasions we have seen him score, we have loved his The General salute.

It is probably fair to point out that Otamendi has never really got the credit he has deserved at City. His reading of the game and vision has at times saved our results. He has never been the quickest but great vision has given him a head start.

The purchases of Laporte and Stones were always made with an eye on the future. As they have developed, Otamendi has found less playing time and it is this which is driving his desire to seek a move.

Otamendi should find a number of top level suitors waiting to take an experienced title winning International defender. Given he will probably be available for a fee of around £30 million he could well prove to be a bargain!

His moving on will be a sad loss in many ways as we have become accustomed to his unique style bucanneering his way through attackers.

The media have reported City plan to move youth player Eric Garcia up to the First Team Squad but will still look for another central defender for the challenges ahead.

Who that new central defensive target may be will become clear in the coming weeks.