Manchester City have confirmed the signing of Tijjani Reijnders from AC Milan for an initial fee of £46.5m on a five-year contract.
The Cityzens confirmed the signing in a statement on their website on Wednesday.
“Manchester City are delighted to announce the signing of Tijjani Reijnders on a five-year deal.
“The 26-year-old Netherlands international joins from AC Milan, where he has spent the last two seasons.
“An energetic yet classy operator capable of playing in an attacking or defensive role, Reijnders was named Serie A’s Best Midfielder in 2024/25.”
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The Netherlands international is Pep Guardiola’s fourth summer signing with Rayan Ait-Nouri, Marcus Bettinelli and Rayan Cherki having also joined.
The 26-year-old was signed in time to be eligible for this month’s Club World Cup in America and could make his debut on 18 June against Wydad FC.
City decided not to pursue a deal for Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz owing to the cost of the deal.
Instead, they have signed Reijnders, Cherki, Bettinelli and Ait-Nouri for a total of around £108m, less than the reported 150m Euros (£127m) asking price for Germany international Wirtz.
The midfielder has been capped 22 times by the Netherlands but was left on the bench during Tuesday night’s 8-0 thrashing of Malta.
He scored 15 goals in 54 matches across all competitions for Milan last term and was named Serie A’s midfielder of the season.
With Kevin de Bruyne departing the club, Reijnders will strengthen the centre of the pitch for Guardiola as they look to improve on their third-placed Premier League finish last season.
BBC Sport
3 Comments
“…..City decided not to pursue a deal for Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz owing to the cost of the deal.
Instead, they have signed Reijnders, Cherki, Bettinelli and Ait-Nouri for a total of around £108m, less than the reported 150m Euros (£127m) asking price for Germany international Wirtz…..”
Hahahaha…..FFP is now teaching clubs how to spend responsibly…….LMAOOoo. They are all learning financial wisdom by force….LMAOooo.
Four players for the price of 1……a case of maximisation of alternatives
Someone should read that out loud to that kalo-kalo analyst parading himself as being a ‘financial analyst’…..LMAOooo. Shebi it is also Finidi who has made clubs to avoid coughing out 150m for Wirtz…….LMAOoooo
Nobody likes Chima Samuel because he is very tribalistic granted and not very smart as he has displayed on many occasions.
Also granted is the fact that Man City probably made the decision on the players they have just bought based on financial wisdom due to the constant threat of FFP but it’s pushing it too far to try and say that the cost was a major factor, which is trying to imply that they wouldnt be able to afford it or that even if they could afford it, they dared not due to the enormity of the cost.
If a player becomes available that they definitely want, then you better believe that they will buy that player, an example would be if someone like Dembele or even maybe Mbappe became available, even if PSG or Real want £200M, City would be first on the queue for that purchase and they would damn the consequences and deal with it later as they have always done – you yourself have mentioned how they have over a hundred cases to answer to with the FFP board, so how or why do you think that is the case? The only player they would also forego at this point for financial wisdom considerations would be Lamin Yamal as Pep does not seem to rate him as highly as everyone else does but as with everything else in football that could change and I predict that it will soon.
Wirtz and Ait-Nouri do not play in the same area of the pitch, so he could never be an alternative to Wirtz and there is also the fact that Liverpool were interested, who will be a very credible challenger to City going forwards from now on and at least for a few seasons to come yet, and may even take over as the dominant force in the EPL unless City can wrestle back the advantage from them is nothing to be sniffed at.
It is true though that both Tijani Reijnders and Cherki, are two direct replacements for the position that Wirtz would have operated in.
That’s not the true picture. Man city withdraw from the race when they realized that wirtz favored Liverpool ahead of them. After all Liverpool will be paying almost $150m to Leverkusen to sign him