Pep Guardiola is gone. Enzo Maresca has signed a three-year deal at the Etihad. And his first major project is a midfield stripped of its senior figures.
Rodri left for Barcelona for 76.5 million euros. Bernardo Silva and Tijjani Reijnders also left the club this summer. Elliot Anderson arrived from Nottingham Forest for around 135 million. And City have just reached an agreement with Lille for Ayyoub Bouaddi: 81.3 million pounds guaranteed, plus 4.3 in bonuses, roughly 100 million euros.
At 18 years old, he becomes the most expensive teenage transfer in Premier League history.
A misleading shortcut
Many already see him as Rodri's replacement. That's an oversimplification.
Rodri was a metronome. He could slow a match down, orient the play with a single touch, occupy a space before the opponent even got there. His strength was reading the game.
Bouaddi, on the other hand, wins his ground differently. Last season, no LOSC player recovered as many balls as he did. At the World Cup, in a Morocco side that reached the quarter-finals, he dominated the midfield of Brazil's Casemiro and Bruno Guimarães. Carlo Ancelotti even called him one of the best young players in the world.
An essential shared trait
The real common ground with Rodri lies elsewhere: both know how to receive the ball under pressure without losing it. That is the entry requirement for Maresca's system, which always builds its play around a single pivot.
The rest, Bouaddi does not yet have. Managing the tempo, controlling a 1-0 match, that comes with time.
City have chosen to pay today what they would have had to pay 150 million for in two years. It is a bet on time.
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