If Leroy Sané departs Manchester City in the coming windows, the club’s board have reportedly found his ideal replacement in Real Sociedad attacker and Spanish international Mikel Oyarzabal, per 90min.
While Manchester City still aim to do everything they can to keep 23-year old sensation Leroy Sané at the club, they are preparing for life after their star German winger. As the player enters the final year of his contract at the Etihad Stadium next season, City Director of Football Txiki Begiristain has reportedly honed in on 22-year old Real Sociedad forward Mikel Oyarzabal as his preferred replacement.
Currently rated at just over £64.5 million, Oyarzabal has scored four goals and recorded three assists in nine La Liga matches this year. After debuting for the Spanish national team against the Faroe Islands this August, he has become a regular fixture in Robert Moreno’s La Roja side.
He has been stylistically compared to Antoine Griezmann in terms of his creative ability, movement, and eye for goal. Therefore, he is not the direct like-for-like swap for Sané that perhaps a player like Jadon Sancho would provide, but he will come at a much more reasonable price tag.
With a transfer fee for the German that could exceed £90 million, City have the opportunity to turn a significant profit on their initial £37 million investment, and directly reinvest those funds. It would be a significant blow to lose a player of Sané’s caliber, and its something the club has not experienced since its rise to the top of the English game in the last decade.
Manchester has served as a destination for the world’s top players when they come to play for City, and the Blues have not lost much talent that they did not want to sell. With a policy of bringing in some of Europe’s hottest prospects and molding them into stars, City have managed to hold on to their players rather than selling and replacing them, but Sané is not the only City player linked with a European giant.
Raheem Sterling has reportedly been the subject of a potential move to Real Madrid, although this deal is much less developed than Sané’s transfer to Bavaria.
Therefore, this stands out as a unique scenario and unfamiliar territory for City. While the best-case scenario would be to convince Sané to commit his future to the Etihad and focus the summer transfer window on the defense, City are prepared for any situation. If Oyarzabal is City’s choice as a replacement, there is a level of trust that he will have the chance to be successful, as so many signings in his mold have come good before.