Manchester City Outcast Joao Cancelo faces Man City transfer uncertainty with Barca manager decision after sacking of Xavi
Joao Cancelo, who is presently on loan at Barcelona from Manchester City, may not have a bright future entering the summer transfer window considering the turbulent selection of the Spanish club’s new manager.
The Portuguese full-back has already spent time away from the Etihad Stadium as a loanee to Bayern Munich during City’s treble-winning season and to Barcelona for the entirety of this season due to bad relations at his parent club. He has made 41 appearances for Xavi Hernandez’s team and has eight goal contributions.
Cancelo would then be eligible to return to his parent club, where he still has three years remaining on his contract, as it would only be for a season. Given what has transpired, this seems improbable, thus departure talks would need to resume once more.
There was no opportunity to purchase the player outright in the future transfer window, as acknowledged when City and their Catalan rivals agreed on the transaction last summer. In the end, this has given rise to months of conflicting rumors, the most recent of which claims the defender won’t be going back to Camp Nou.
With Xavi’s departure from Barca announced, Spanish daily SPORT claims that his anticipated successor Cancelo is not a favorite of Hansi Flick’s. The German would like to look for alternatives on the transfer market since he doesn’t think he has the defensive skills necessary to fit into his system.
The club’s inclination to use the loan market rather than make permanent acquisitions appears to be the only obstacle in Flick’s strategy.
The position taken just two weeks ago has drastically changed. Xavi had declared his intention to resign earlier in the year, but the board persuaded him to stay. Strong trust between the two had all but guaranteed Cancelo a second loan, but now since Flick would take over as manager of Barca once the season ended, that possibility would disappear.
Second, Cancelo’s reputation has completely changed as a result of this. Prior to this, as the most expensive player in his position to date, he was considered the best when he played a crucial role in Pep Guardiola’s championship teams in 2020–21 and 2021–2022.
Finally, this should indicate that City will be searching for possible buyers in order to arrange a third loan in a row or, ideally, recover as much of the £60 million they spent in 2019.
