Are Manchester City back?

On Sunday, the Sky Blues smashed Ipswich Town 6-0 at Portman Road; Phil Foden bagging a brace, while Mateo Kovačić, Jérémy Doku, Erling Haaland and James McAtee were all also on target in Suffolk.

This is Man City’s joint-most emphatic top-flight away victory of all-time, previously hammering Watford 6-0 in September 2017, a scoreline that sees them move up to fourth on goal difference, above Newcastle, unbeaten in six across all competitions ahead of Wednesday’s crucial Champions League trip to Paris Saint-Germain.

Off the field too, the Citizens continue to be busier than any other club this January window, set to complete the signings of Vitor Reis, Abdukodir Khusanov and Omar Marmoush this week, costing a combined £120m.

But their spending is not done yet, with Pep Guardiola looking to bolster his midfield options too.

Manchester City looking to re-sign midfielder

According to a report by David Ornstein of the Athletic, Manchester City are “considering” re-signing Douglas Luiz on loan for the remainder of the season, while Juventus are only willing to sanction such a deal if an “obligation to buy” is included.

Luiz only joined la Vecchia Signora from Aston Villa as recently as last summer for a reported £42.5m, with Enzo Barrenechea and Samuel Iling-Junior moving in the opposite direction to Villa for a reported £18m, as the Villans aimed to avoid a potential PSR breach.

However, as described by Adam Digby of Forbes, Luiz’s time at Juventus has gone disastrously, with the front page of Gazzetta dello Sport labelling him ‘a flop’ as early as October.

This came after the most high-profile of his missteps, giving away a penalty for handball mere seconds after being introduced as a substitute against RB Leipzig in the Champions League, spared further scrutiny because ten-man Juve scored twice late on to snatch victory in Saxony.

In total, Luiz has seen just 474 minutes of action in a Bianconeri shirt, that’s little over 18% of their total minutes, coming on for the final 15 minutes against both Atalanta and AC Milan this week, but Thiago Motta clearly does not view him as a key figure.

Both his former club Aston Villa as well as Nottingham Forest have reportedly shown an interest in securing Luiz’s services, but surely Man City would be at the front of the queue if he were to return to the Premier League.

How Douglas Luiz would improve Manchester City

The Brazilian actually spent two seasons on Man City’s books, signing from Vasco da Gama for a reported £10m in 2017, but he never made an appearance for the Sky Blues, spending two seasons on loan at Girona, making 46 appearances for another club owned by City Football Group, before being sold to Aston Villa in 2019 for £15m.

During his time at Villa, Content Strategy Consultant Adam Gilks described Luiz as “one of the best sixes in the Premier League”, impressed by his “great vision and… fantastic work rate”.

This sale included a 20% sell on clause, which proved to be a nice little earner for the Citizens last summer, while Man City also had a buy-back clause that Jake Bayliss of the Manchester Evening News believes “expired in 2021”, emphasising that the four-in-a-row Premier League champions have long thought Luiz was capable of playing for their first team one day. However, that could well be set to change in 2025.

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As has been widely documented, Manchester City’s downturn in form this season has primarily been due to Rodri’s ACL injury suffered against Arsenal in September, with Guardiola describing the reigning Ballon d’Or winner as “irreplaceable”.

İlkay Gündoğan and Kovačić are doing their best to fill Rodri’s enormous void, the Croatian starting 12 of the 17 Premier League matches since the Spaniard’s injury, including each of the last six, but the duo clearly need help, so let’s see how Luiz and Kovačić compare.

Appearances

74

80

Minutes

4,854

5,194

Goals

9

8

Assists

10

2

Attempted passes

3,156

3,362

Pass completion %

85.9%

93.5%

Touches

3,527

3,737

Tackles

86

90

% of dribblers tackled

50.6%

50.6%

Interceptions

30

44

Blocks

41

44

Clearances

32

26

Ball recoveries

246

174

% of aerial duals won

58.5%

57.1%

As the table shows, Luiz is much more of a goal threat than Kovačić, albeit that isn’t what Man City are looking for from a midfield addition this month.

More pertinently, Luiz and Kovačić are comparable when it comes to passes, pass accuracy and all the out-of-possession metrics, tackles, interceptions and blocks, with the Brazilian ranking higher for ball recoveries as well as aerial duals won.

This is impressive considering Villa finished 21 points below Man City last season, while Luiz has seen very little action since swapping Birmingham for Turin, with these numbers suggesting he’d slot into the Sky Blues’ team seamlessly, eight years after first joining the club.

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