Extended at full price and over the (very) long term by the SkybluesErling Haaland has been more than ever a long-term player at the Etihad Stadium. Promised to Mancunian supporters until he turns 34, the Norwegian giant is well on his way to being the leading figure in the Citizens for the coming decade. But beyond the player, it is an entire club which gives the sensation of raising its head with the new year, during which it has still not experienced defeat.
The return of serenity
A few days before meeting PSG in the Champions League, in an almost decisive match for the two teams, City seems to be regaining an aura once lost at the end of 2024. As they set foot on the lawn of the Parc, Manchester scares again, and it doesn't matter if he displays an unworthy sixth place in the championship and a very lousy 22e place in the Champions League. If he wrote a letter to Premier League defenders to warn them that he did not intend to stop his business across the Channel anytime soon, Haaland (21 goals including tax this season) above all shows that the Manchester City project, if we have a time thought that it might flutter, was far from dying out. An impression reinforced by Pep Guardiola at a press conference on Friday: « If a player decides to sign this type of contract, it is because he wants to show that he wants to be here. »
Beyond the athlete, the message is very clear for City: nothing will shake the club and its ambitions – not even the 115 charges he faces – which did not prevent Pep Guardiola to leave for a tour until 2027. Another extension which, however, has a slight whiff of the announced end of the reign, where the ambition now is to leave his successor with solid foundations on which to build again.
The fountain of youth
A quick overview of the forces present: in addition to Guardiola, sporting director Txiki Begiristain is preparing to fly to other skies, but City has already found his replacement with Hugo Viana. The two men must work hand in hand until June and the major maneuvers seem to have begun. As for the players, exit Kyle Walker, leaving for Italy, but almost certainly somewhere other than City at the end of the transfer window. What about Kevin De Bruyne? At the end of his contract in the summer, the Belgian has still not extended, while Bernardo Silva could also leave the ship for good in the off-season.
-In the direction of arrivals, the Citizens did not take long to identify their successors. Omar Marmoush (25 years old), Abdukodir Khusanov (20 years old), Vitor Reiss (18 years old) should all soon arrive at Manchester with big checks and complete a squad much younger than it seems: Phil Foden and Joško Gvardiol (24 years old), Oscar Bobb, James McAtee and Jérémy Doku (22 years old), Savinho (21 years old), Rico Lewis (20 years old) or even Claudio Echeverri (19 years old) are in the same vein as Haaland, while Grealish, Stones, Akanji, Rodri or Aké are set to become in their turn the old hands of a workforce in full transformation.
In the meantime, only one position has not been explored on the market: that of number 9. Proof of Haaland's value, but also symbolic of the difficulty of finding a player of this kind in contemporary football. Less than a year after reluctantly losing Julien Álvarez, City have chosen to leave nothing to chance. If he is renowned for not skimping on his needs during the transfer window, he now shows that the converse is true when he already has the solution within him.
Erling Haaland writes a letter to opposing defenders
