When Manchester City announced last October that Hugo Viana of Sporting CP would replace Txiki Begiristain as the club's director of football this summer, The Citizens were still unbeaten in all competitions.
Currently, the reigning Premier League champions are in a battle for a ticket to the Champions League next season. They have one chance to win the FA Cup. This is the arena where Man City have reached the semi-finals and will meet Nottingham Forest.
With the upcoming transfer from Begiristain, Viana will officially start working at the Etihad. And one of his many tasks ahead of the 2025 summer transfer window will be to find a way to reform the midfield.
Kevin De Bruyne has announced that he will leave when his contract at the Etihad expires after the 2024-2025 season. It seems that Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva will also follow the Belgian midfielder away from Man City.
The Citizens spent more than €150 million on four new players in January this year. They can also rely on rising talents at the club such as Oscar Bobb, Claudio Echeverri, Nico O'Reilly and James McAtee. However, the summer of 2025 will almost certainly be a summer of departures and arrivals at the Etihad.
With 115 Premier League allegations threatening the club, as well as uncertainty about qualifying for next season's Champions League, Viana will have to calculate a lot.
How to carry out such a complex reconstruction? Instead of aiming for a similar replacement for De Bruyne, Pep Guardiola could find versatile midfielders to fill many different positions.
However, it is important to see whether those tasked with midfield can get along with Rodri when he returns from injury.
"The club has to move forward. There are players who are the only ones, the role models that the club wants to aim for. Kevin De Bruyne is one of them. It was a shock now, but people will remember me as lucky to see such a player who gave us everything. We can only be grateful.
The time I am here, I will always have the image of De Bruyne in my memory. He cannot be forgotten" - Guardiola said about the Belgian midfielder's departure.
Overall, De Bruyne's departure is the biggest change in the Man City team. The Etihad outfit could spend more than £100 million to sign Bayer Leverkusen's Florian Wirtz to fill the void. The German midfielder's ability to create play and finishing is his strength.
The Citizens expect Wirtz to follow a similar path to De Bruyne, when he moved from a Bundesliga side to Man City and became a star at the Etihad.
