Sport

Pep Guardiola hints at when Manchester City fans can expect to see their latest arrival

New wonderkid on the block?

Danny Jones Danny Jones - 27th February 2025

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has given supporters a rough timeline as to when they can expect to see their new signing, or at least their latest arrival, make his first appearance.

The Blues wrapped up the January transfer window with four major signings: their new attacking number seven, Omar Marmoush (who has already bagged a hattrick on his home debut) promising defensive duo, Abdukodir Khusanov and Brazilian Vitor Reis, as well as their ‘mini-Rodri’, Nico Gonzalez.

However, the club has had another late arrival who was technically signed back at the start of last year but who has spent for the last 12 months or so loaned back to his previous parent club, River Plate in Argentina, waiting to make the move over to the Etihad Stadium – and now he’s here in Manchester.

Speaking on his touchdown in 0161, Pep said Claudio Echeverri won’t be thrown into first-team action straight away but did give a rough estimate as to when City fans could expect him to get involved. You can see him discussing the integration plan in his post-match press conference following the Spurs win.

The mention was only brief but there’s still plenty of reason for Man City fans to be excited by the late January signing.

“Yeah, he [Claudio Echeverri] is going to start to train and mainly will be for the end of the season, maybe the [Club] World Cup and as soon as possible [that] he arrives he can adapt quick for the future.”

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As mentioned, the 19-year-old Argentinian attacking midfielder from Resistencia officially put pen to paper with CFG back in January 2024 and was quickly dubbed ‘the next Messi’.

Now, although the football world is often quick to jump the gun with these things and he isn’t the first and certainly won’t be last to be slapped with this premature title, he’s done more to back up these claims since then than he has rubbish them.

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Starring at the 2025 Under-20 South American Championships, netting six goals in nine games to finish the tournament as the second highest scorer thanks to notable braces against Brazil and Uruguay as the young Argentine’s finished as runners up.

He also notched 48 senior appearances for River Plate thus far, netting four goals and grabbing eight assists in that time, not to mention having already captained his national team at the 2023 Under 17s World Cup, where he scored another five.

Safe to say there’s plenty of talent to be tapped in this lad.

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Once again, Echeverri won’t go straight into the senior set-up for a little while yet, barring a major injury crisis, but he’ll be a more than exciting addition to the City Football Academy and for future first-team lineups for years to come.

Who knows, maybe he’ll be included in an FA Cup matchday squad? Nevertheless, you can expect him to not just come of the bench but hopefully show what he can do at the Club World Cup this summer.

City‘s first fixture as reigning champions of the competition will be against Moroccan side Wydad AC on 18 June 2025.

You can watch Echeverri’s first full interview as a Man City player down below:

The new Man City signing is excited to be finally be part of the club 13 months on from agreeing his contract.

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Featured Images — Hayters TV (screenshot via YouTube)/Manchester City (via X)

Sport

Ruben Amorim fires back at Man United legend Wayne Rooney after ‘naive’ comment

Danny Jones Danny Jones Ruben Amorim responds to Wayne Rooney naive Premier League comment

Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim has responded to comments made by club legend Wayne Rooney following the team’s exit from the FA Cup.

Amorim’s Reds and current cup holders under his predecessor, Erik ten Hag, dropped out of this year’s tournament to Fulham on penalties after a fairly low-quality 90 minutes and an even more exhausting extra time for both sets of fans.

The Portuguese coach had no trouble accepting that his side wasn’t up to the level on Sunday evening, as he has since he arrived, but insisted in his post-match interviews that Man United‘s overall goal is to win the Premier League.

However, reacting to the fame in the gantry after the game, ex-player and former all-time leading England goalscorer Wayne Rooney remarked that “little bit naive” to suggest they can challenge for the title any time soon. Here’s exactly what he had to say:

Do you agree with Rooney – is Amorim being naive?

While neither party actually gave a timeline as to when they expect Man United to realistically compete for a Premier League title, there seemed to be an agreement in the studio that the new manager might be thinking a little too far ahead this very moment.

For context, as well as having now conceded their trophy win from last season in a game that most supporters would have felt they should be winning (especially as the holders playing at home), the Red Devils currently sit 14th on 33 points in the Premier League table with a negative goal difference of six.

In contrast, league leaders Liverpool – also still adjusting to life under a new manager, though doing so much better – have just over double that amount of points after 28 games and even though Man City have had a bit of a rollercoaster time of late themselves, they’re still fourth and not far off second.

Nevertheless, the boss didn’t just sit there and take ‘Wazza‘s remarks lightly, choosing instead to provide a bit of perspective from one football manager to another.

Delivering a fairly calm but somewhat barbed response to Rooney, Amorim shrugged off the suggestion that he’s being naive when it comes to his new home, clarifying that while it would be foolish to expect fast results this year or even be “the best contender” in the coming campaign, it is their ultimate goal.

To put it in footballing terms, you could argue Amorim left a bit of a boot in on Rooney, who was sacked by Birmingham City after just 15 games in charge and Plymouth after just seven months in the dugout.

Even prior to these two less-than-fortunate spells, the only other two jobs on the 39-year-old’s CV are his time at Derby County and DC United in the MLS, at which he failed to make any real impact at either.

Meanwhile, Amorim has won Liga Portugal twice, their domestic league cup three times at two different clubs and the Portuguese Super Cup once since his first coaching job at Casa Pia in his home country’s third tier in 218 – again, all at the age of 40, as he was keen to point out.

He also went on to quip, “Everybody knows everything”, adding that he was also a pundit when he finished his career and it is “easy” to comment from his/their position, going on to reinforce that the goal, however premature or long term it might feel, is to win the league.

Amorim has reiterated that he is “not naive” on multiple occasions already since joining the club and whatever Rooney or anyone else thinks, he appears to be remaining steadfast. You can listen to Ruben Amorim’s post-match press conference in full HERE and see the highlights from the game down below:

If you had three words to sum up this current United team, what would they be? Let us know in the comments.

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Featured Images — Optus Sport/Sky Sports/BBC Sport (screenshot via YouTube)

Sport

‘Nothing is eternal’: Is Pep Guardiola hinting at the end of Manchester City’s supremacy?

Danny Jones Danny Jones Pep Guardiola on Man City's dominance coming to an end post match press conference

Pep Guardiola looks to have suggested that more than a decade of Manchester City’s supremacy and Premier League dominance at the very least might be coming to an end.

Speaking in his post-match press interviews after City were knocked out of the Champions League by serial European Cup winners Real Madrid, Guardiola cut a somewhat more deflated figure than usual following the 3-1 defeat.

A Kylian Mbappe hattrick which was closed out within an hour of play was enough to stretch the aggregate score to 6-3 over the two legs and Madrid doubling their lead across the tie proved yet again why, not unlike City domestically over the last decade, they’re the kings of the continental competition.

In contrast, however, Pep seemed to accept the loss much more easily than perhaps we’ve seen in the past and rather than appearing familiarly frustrated or defiant in the press conference; instead, he seemed rather reflective, responding to one reporter: “Nothing is eternal”.

Insisting that they have to decide whether a significant rebuild is needed to keep competing at the very top level consistently as they have done since the 54-year-old arrived back in 2016, he argued that it is only with that they’ll be able to determine what comes next.

As for the result itself, he made no bones about Carlo Ancelotti’s side having “deserved it”, stating simply that “the best team won” and that fans and players alike have to “accept the reality: they were better.”

Having been a familiar foe for Pep long before he arrived in Manchester, both at Barcelona and Bayern Munich – not to mention City having faced Los Blancos a dozen times before Tuesday night since 2012 – there have been less surprising outcomes for supporters to come to terms with.

“With time, the club and everyone is going to accept what it is but for now we have 30/40 games for the Premier League next season to try and be here [in the Champions League] and to improve. Nothing is eternal”, said the Catalan coaching genius.

On the other hand, he also went on to add that it was merely a reflection on the night itself and not what his team have achieved in recent years.

He went on to remark that “when we were playing outstanding it hurt more” to be knocked out of the UCL when he felt they deserved to stay in it, but still insisted: “We have been unbelievable and we have to try step by step to get better from today.” Tonight just wasn’t the night.

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Who knows? Perhaps it was just some more melodrama from a manager with an undeniable flare for pageantry and playing into/in the face of narratives when he doesn’t come out on top – which hasn’t happened all that often until their dip in form this season.

Plus, there’s certainly still plenty for him and the fans to be positive about; not only has the arrival of their ‘Egyptian Prince’ and the media’s Mo Salah successor, Omar Marmoush, got plenty of people excited – especially after that first-half hattrick against Newcastle – but so too have the other January signings.

In fact, for all of his downplaying in this particular presser (which you can hear in full HERE), it felt like there were only upsides after their victory over Newcastle, even going so far as to dub new signing Nico Gonzalez a ‘mini-Rodri‘.

You can watch the highlights from the game down below:

Pep is right, nothing is eternal – but sometimes you just come up against talents like Mbappe and there’s very little anyone can do about it.

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Featured Images — TNT Sports/Virgin Media Sport (screenshots via YouTube)

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