Manchester City have shown no qualms when it comes to selling their players if suitable offers arrive at their door.
Over recent years, City have cashed in on multiple players and picked up significant transfer fees in doing so.
In fact, Borussia Dortmund recently triggered their option to sign Yan Couto for £25m from City after the right-back joined the German club on an initial loan move in the previous summer transfer window.
Pep Guardiola’s side have also shown that they aren’t against selling some of their players to fellow Premier League sides.
For instance, the Blues have sold the likes Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko to some of their fellow top-flight clubs.
Now though, a pundit has made a claim about another player who walked away from the Etihad Stadium to pursue a new chapter in his career at another Premier League club.
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Darren Bent claims Cole Palmer would’ve struggled under Pep Guardiola at Man City
After Cole Palmer was recently named England’s Player of the Year, Darren Bent said this in a recent video shared on the talkSPORT YouTube channel about the player’s exit from City.
He said: “Since he got to Chelsea he’s been incredible. His numbers have been good, the creativity.
“Almost like that calming influence in what has been chaos for Chelsea over the last couple of seasons. He’s getting better and better.
“This is one of those things where when you look at someone like [Phil] Foden, I’m not quite sure Cole Palmer has the same impact if he stays at City.
“And the reason why I say that is because Man City have got so many other great players, I’m not sure Pep would have allowed him to play with this freedom in that system.
“There’s nothing wrong with that because look what they’ve won.
“I think Pep will develop you and he’s still for me the best coach on the planet, but allowing Cole to go to Chelsea and play with that freedom where everything else around him was absolutely crazy, he was the one that was like, ‘you know what? I’m fine, I’m not going to use that.’
“Because a lot of players would have gone to Chelsea for that money and use it as an excuse to kind of down tools a little bit and go ‘listen, what can I do? Look at everyone else around me, we haven’t got a manager.’
“But he’s gone there and gone, ‘No, absolutely not. I know what I am, I know what I can do.’ And he’s gone there and he’s been incredible, absolutely incredible.
“The fact that it didn’t start a game at the Euros is bizarre but he’s not used that to kind of go this is unfair. I know he scored in the final, but he’s taken that experience and started this season like an absolute train.”
Guardiola had no doubts about Palmer’s ‘immense quality’ at City
As a product of City’s academy, Palmer made 41 senior appearances for the club before joining Chelsea for £42.5m (via BBC Sport) back in the 2023 summer transfer window.
A few months after this move, Guardiola said this about Palmer and why he left City.
He said: “We didn’t have any doubts about his quality. The way he is playing, he’s already an exceptional player.
“He travelled to move on. He wanted the minutes, was a question of time to show his immense quality. He is a lovely lad and he helped us achieve what we achieved.”
During his time at Stamford Bridge, Palmer has scored 31 goals and supplied 20 assists in 54 appearances.
Bearing in mind how Guardiola has developed players such as Phil Foden and Rico Lewis, it may come as a surprise to City supporters that Bent feels Palmer wouldn’t have been able to do what he has done at Chelsea if he stayed at the Manchester club.
