According to latest reports, Aleks Zinchenko, the 21-year-old Manchester City player is keen to stay and extend his career with the champions instead of accepting a move away. Reportedly, newly promoted Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers have made a bid for Zinchenko in order to lure the lad from City.
Zinchenko is quite a versatile player and is capable of filling in a number of positions. He is an excellent reader of the game and possesses an astute passing range, coupled with a sense of maturity regarding when to release the ball. Zinchenko holds the ball well in the final third despite his not-so-imposing physical stature. He is at his most natural and comfortable going forward and is slowly improving in other areas of his game.
He recorded a passing accuracy of 92.4% last season and that gives a decent indication of the maturity that he shows in his game too.
However, despite the interest from Wolves, Zinchenko wants to stay at Manchester City. He is eyeing the place vacated by Yaya Toure. He could be a backup to Fernandinho in the holding midfield position, despite playing as a left back last season. Benjamin Mendy looks to be fit for the new season and hence Zinchenko might not get many opportunities to play in that position. Even last season, Zinchenko played only eight games in the left-back slot, and currently, Fabian Delph would be the backup to Mendy.
In the holding midfield position, Ilkay Gundogan and Fabian Delph would be the deputies for Fernandinho in the most likely scenario. This shows that Zinchenko would be, at best, the third-choice player in both of his preferred positions in the current City squad.
Despite his flattering talks in the media regarding the quality of youth players in City’s roster, Pep Guardiola has not reflected the same affection towards these lads in terms of playing time. None of the City’s academy players have played a notable role ever since their new manager took over and it would be interesting to see where Zinchenko’s career heads now.
The lad’s determination is commendable but he is not under a manager or a team, which has promoted young players in the past few years. A lot of which has been down to the fact that City have achieved enormous success in recent times and the nature and demand of them winning almost everything they take part in results in fewer experiments. A move to Wolves would be better for him, considering that as a 21-year-old player, he deserves much more game time.
Stats Courtesy: Whoscored
