City Watch: Gonalez's future uncertain

I don’t just mean no games to review or preview or transfers, I mean, it’s like we got knocked out of the Club World Cup and disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Despite this, there is one area I’m keen to talk about in the column this week, and that’s to talk about what is going to happen to some of our January signings from last season. Anyone who watches football on a regular basis can look at City’s transfer window for the summer so far and make the judgement that it’s been pretty outstanding up to this point.

However, it has made me wonder about the signings the club made in January, and what will happen with those players, as some seem to be getting less and less involved. I think the obvious one to rule out of any type of move away is Omar Marmoush; he is integrated within the team and clearly a crucial part of Pep’s squad.

However, my concern lies with the remaining three, those being Nico Gonzalez, Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis. With the injury of Rodri early on in the season, signing in a new defensive midfielder seemed like a wise choice, as that was where Pep was struggling to make a replacement with his squad at the time. When Nico first joined, I had a lot of confidence from his first few games, buit the performances clearly weren’t to Guardiola’s level, as he was consistently left out of the starting XI towards the end of the season.

He’s even now being linked with a potential move away, which to be honest, I’m not surprised about. As for the two defenders City signed, Khusanov and Reis, they’re two different stories. Khusanov had a rocky start in his first game against Chelsea, but since that game he had some great performances, showing great ability and speed in defending. There was a point in the season when his appearances went through the floor, sparking rumours as to whether he’d had a falling out with Pep.

For Vitor Reis, I have a certain degree of sympathy for, he’s only had four appearances across all competitions, not including the Club World Cup, since joining.

At the time, it was discussed whether these signings were ‘panic buys’ and whether the club were trying to solve problems in the middle of the season that couldn’t be fixed. Marmoush is potentially the only exception to this, but the others I have to agree lean towards panic signings.

It’s frustrating really because three of the four signings City made had little to no impact on the outcome of last season, meaning we could’ve saved that spending on players for this transfer window. I also feel for the players who haven’t been included as much, as they must have been excited to join a club like City, and simply have not had the game time.