Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson has claimed that Julian Alvarez should be getting more game time at Manchester City.
The striker enjoyed a successful debut season at the Etihad Stadium by winning the treble and is now gearing up to take on the next campaign.
With the new season just a couple of weeks away from kicking off, one pundit has made a claim about the Argentine and the possibility of him being in the mix of the Premier League’s top goalscorers.
Merson says Alvarez needs to play more
In a recent column for Sportskeeda, Merson had this to say about Alvarez when discussing the potential candidates that could win the Golden Boot next season.
He said: “Julian Alvarez is also a great player, but he’d have to get a hat-trick in every game he plays to get close. He’s a starter in almost every other team in Europe.”
After the Citizens secured a deal with River Plate worth £14m to sign the 23-year-old back in January last year, the centre-forward ended up scoring 17 goals in 49 appearances across all competitions.
Despite featuring in so many games last season for Pep Guardiola’s side, Alvarez only started 23 of them.
This makes it easy to see why Merson thinks if the World Cup winner were to play more games, he’d be in with a chance of winning the Golden Boot and has the ability to start for most other teams in Europe.
However, with City also having Erling Haaland in the squad, who scored 52 goals in 53 appearances last season, this is a main reason why Alvarez doesn’t always find himself in the starting XI.
Although, with the former River Plate star being deployed in different positions throughout last season, this versatility could give him the chance to play in the team as well as Haaland and start getting more goals under his belt.
