Pundit Steve Nicol has suggested that Manchester City have decided to sell Cole Palmer because they don’t rate his ability.
It was reported yesterday that the Manchester club had agreed a deal with Chelsea to sell the winger to the west London club for a fee of around £40m-£45m.
This has now led to one pundit having his say on this reported piece of transfer business.
Nicol says City don’t rate Palmer
Speaking in a recent video on the ESPN FC YouTube channel, Nicol had this to say about why City could be allowing Palmer to leave.
He said: “They don’t fancy him. They’ve just let [Riyad] Mahrez go, so if you’re Palmer, you’re thinking ‘wow, they’ve let Mahrez go, that means there’s an opportunity here for me.’
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“But then, if you’re the club and you’ve let Mahrez go, you’re thinking ‘this guy’s not good enough to fill his boots, so we’re going to have to bring in somebody else,’ which means he’s going to have to go.
“The whole thing doesn’t make any sense, quite frankly. If the guy is good, it makes no sense for City to get rid of him, and particularly with the squad Chelsea have, it makes no sense for them to sign another kid with no experience basically. The whole thing makes no sense to me honestly.”
After making 64 appearances for the Manchester club’s youth sides, scoring 42 goals and delivering 19 assists along the way, Palmer has now featured for Guardiola’s side on 41 occasions, chipping in with six assists and two goals.
Two of those goals have been in the early weeks of this season as the attacker followed up his goal against Arsenal in the Community Shield with a crucial header against Sevilla in the Super Cup, which ultimately led to City winning the final in Athens on penalties.
Bearing in mind how City brought in Jeremy Doku following Mahrez’s departure to Al-Ahli, this could have been a signal that they weren’t fully convinced in terms of Palmer’s ability to be a like-for-like replacement for the Algerian as Nicol spoke about.
However, with just 19 Premier League games to his name, it’s understandable why City have apparently accepted such a hefty transfer fee for a player that doesn’t have a significant plethora of top-flight experience under his belt.