Manchester City don’t often get it wrong when it comes to offloading players.
The club never really stands in players’ ways when they want to leave the Etihad Stadium, providing a suitable transfer offer arrives.
There have only been a couple of exceptions to this rule in Kyle Walker and Bernardo Silva, with Pep Guardiola fighting hard to keep both at the club in recent times.
In recent days though, it has been suggested that James McAtee is a target for West Ham United.
The youngster has struggled for minutes this term and the Hammers reportedly see him as a top target to replace Lucas Paqueta if he leaves the club.
And there’s one reason City should be taking the same stance with McAtee as they did with the likes of Walker and Bernardo.
Man City could make Cole Palmer-style blunder by offloading James McAtee
It’s been suggested that West Ham are interested in McAtee and would be able to fork out over 320 million for him.
There hasn’t really been a definitive claim regarding McAtee’s asking price. But most City fans would like to hope it would be considerably more than around £20 million.
Guardiola’s lack of minutes for McAtee has been strange to see this season, given City have sometimes struggled to break teams down in the Premier League.
The report linking McAtee to West Ham has made a few supporters uncomfortable, because the talented 22-year-old has not been given a proper chance yet – and there are parallels here with Cole Palmer.
Palmer left City last year to join Chelsea for £42.5 million, having struggled for opportunities at the Etihad Stadium.
He’s been a revelation at Stamford Bridge and is now one of the best players in the Premier League.
Surely, Palmer’s sale should be reason enough for City to not act too hastily in January. Palmer’s sale now looks to be one of City’s worst player decisions in recent history, and the club don’t want to risk another fine young academy talent in McAtee shining elsewhere.
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It remains to be seen if West Ham come calling with an official bid.
But unless it’s absolutely huge money, City shouldn’t be entertaining it. If needs be, the club could loan him out but selling at this point could be a mistake.
McAtee – dubbed ‘special’ by Guardiola previously – is pretty much in the same position as Palmer was when he left. He’s got a very similar amount of first-team experience and probably has a similar ceiling to Palmer.
City should hold on to the ‘Salford Silva’, because there’s a chance he could shine next term,
Kevin De Bruyne could move on, having interest from San Diego FC, while Bernardo could also finally leave after years of flirting with the idea.
Both of these attacking players would potentially open the door for McAtee
Given what’s happened with Palmer, City have surely got to try and get McAtee more involved. If that can’t be this season at the Etihad, then he should be loaned out in January not sold.
