City made quite a deal this summer when Julian Alvarez was tired of standing in the shadow of Erling Haaland at the top. The Argentine was brought to the Etihad for £14m two years earlier, after 103 appearances in a City shirt with 36 goals and 18 assists, Atletico Madrid were willing to fork out £82m for the striker. In the short term, a very lucrative deal, the problem was that the City management and Guardiola chose to believe the rest of the City attack would cover up for Alvarez’s offensive, big contribution.
The City crowd thought they didn’t need to spend the money and relied on Erling Haaland and Phil Foden for goals as they did last season, while they looked to Jeremy Doku and new signing Savinho for extra “firepower”.
This was the plan.
At Atletico, Alvarez has scored 12 goals this season and is helping lead Atletico Madrid’s run to the La Liga title. City have had to rely on Haaland’s goals to a dangerously unhealthy degree, as English Goal describes it as.
Behind Haaland is Josko Gvardiol with four goals to the Norwegian’s 13. Doku and Kevin De Bruyne have two league goals each, Foden has one, while Savinho is yet to score for the club.
Claudio Echeverri, who is on the same career path as Alvarez, arrives in January from River Plate, but the 18-year-old cannot be expected to start very often at this stage and will likely spend next season on loan. So the club needs a proven, mobile attacker who can back Haaland up and step in so that he can get a rest from time to time.
Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz is the dream option, but he will cost in the region of £100 million ($125 million) and will be very difficult to take away from Xabi Alonso and Leverkusen in the middle of the season.
City need an Alvarez replacement anyway, there is little doubt about that.
