Manchester City have fully agreed a deal to sign AC Milan midfielder Tijjani Reijnders for an initial fee of approximately £46 million.
Reijnders, 26, was named as Serie A’s best midfielder last season after ten goals and five assists in 37 league appearances.
The Dutch international is set to undergo his medical on Sunday, with the expectation being that he’ll join City in time to compete at the FIFA Club World Cup, with the temporary transfer window closing on June 10th.
But where does he fit into City’s plans?
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Reijnders is reminiscent of club legend Ilkay Gundogan. Both are technical box crashing central midfielders, who mostly thrive as eights but can play in deep lying and attacking midfield.
The German is expected to stay at City for one more season, but with less game time than he got since rejoining, paving the way for Reijnders to take on some of his minutes.
Mateo Kovacic and Bernardo Silva don’t seem to be going anywhere either, meaning a move for Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White seems to be, for now at least, off the cards.
The deal for Lyon attacking midfielder Rayan Cherki is less advanced but still widely expected to happen. He’s not as established as his predecessor, Kevin de Bruyne, so for his first season at least we could see Reijnders used more often as a number ten whilst Cherki settles.
Although, if the 21-year-old performs as he did in France’s 5-4 defeat to Spain, where he scored a fabulous goal and set up Randall Kolo Muani with a beautiful cross, he’ll be very hard to dislodge from the starting XI and we can expect Reijnders to operate deeper.
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Although competition for places in that area is difficult. Rodri should be fit and ready to start by the beginning of next season, which leaves Reijnders, Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Nico Gonzalez and Mateo Kovacic competing for places in midfield if we assume Cherki signs and plays regularly as the ten.
Whilst it’s not ideal that City will have so many excellent players unable to make the starting XI, it means that Reijnders will have time to adapt without taking on too much responsibility straight away, knowing the team can cope without him.
It might take him until his second season to properly fit in as many of City’s previous signings have done, but it would appear that City have got themselves yet another steal; a first team quality player that fixes plenty of issues for under £50 million in today’s market.
A hardworking, versatile, technical midfielder will always have a place in a Pep Guardiola team, and Reijnders has all of those qualities in abundance.
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