Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola is closely monitoring the performances of Mahamadou Sangaré following his arrival from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer, as per a new report.
Guardiola loosened the purse strings after a disappointing 2024-25 season for his side in the backdrop of a dormant 2024 summer transfer window, wherein Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has admitted the club should have been more aggressive.
Having spent £181.5 million in January on the quartet of Omar Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez, Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis, Manchester City further revamped the first-team ranks in the summer following the appointment of Hugo Viana as director of football.
Viana signed off on the high-profile departures of Kevin De Bruyne, Kyle Walker, Ederson and Ilkay Gundogan in a sliding doors window for Manchester City, who introduced seven fresh faces to the first-team squad between June and September.
Rayan Ait-Nouri, Marcus Bettinelli, Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Cherki, Sverre Nypan, James Trafford and Gianluigi Donnarumma were all brought in as Viana conducted a major rejig of the senior dressing room to get Manchester City back to winning major trophies.
Guardiola also shuffled his coaching staff with the shrewd acquisition of Pepijn Lijnders – who was Jurgen Klopp’s right-hand man at Liverpool – and former Manchester City academy coach Kolo Toure, who has worked with the likes of Nico O’Reilly in the youth ranks.
City sanctioned a series of notable season-long loans to trim their squad and the wage bill but more importantly, to accommodate Guardiola’s recurring requests to work with a streamlined, cut-throat group of players.
Vitor Reis, Jack Grealish, Manuel Akanji, Sverre Nypan and Claudio Echeverri joined Girona, Everton, Inter Milan, Middlesbrough and Bayer Leverkusen in the final months of the window to progress the first-team rebuild.
A whirlwind window also witnessed City securing the arrival of Mahamadou Sangaré from Paris Saint-Germain in the backdrop of a sensational campaign for the 18-year-old forward with the treble winners’ academy.
As Manchester City look to alleviate a growing goalscoring burden on Erling Haaland’s shoulders, Africa Foot are reporting that Guardiola is keeping a close eye on Sangaré after an eye-catching start to life in Manchester for the Mali-born striker, as relayed by Sport Witness.
A French youth international, Sangaré could soon be called up to Guardiola’s first-team squad as Manchester City eye creative solutions to providing some relief to Haaland, who has individually carried his side over the line in attack since Julian Alvarez’s £82 million move to Atletico Madrid last summer
Sangaré has all the attributes to make the step up to the first-team building and Manchester City executives are expected to moot the transition sooner rather than later, with the Blues unlikely to add a forward to their senior ranks in the January transfer window.
