My dream was to play for Barcelona – but Fabrizio Romano thinks Man City want me to replace De Bruyne

Back in 2021, when a teenage Florian Wirtz was just starting to break into the Bayer Leverkusen first team, he was asked what his long-term ambition was – and didn’t hesitate.

“My dream when I was a child was always to play for FC Barcelona,” Wirtz said in the same year he made his Germany debut as a 17-year-old. “That hasn’t changed. The good thing is that I still have a lot of time."

Four years later, Wirtz is one of the most impressive and in-demand midfielders in Europe, but Barcelona – having pulled plenty of their economic levers to sign Dani Olmo last summer – don’t seem to be a likely destination should he move. Manchester City, on the other hand…

Why Florian Wirtz could sign for Manchester City

Manchester City’s relatively dismal campaign will soon see them relinquish control of the Premier League title, but they seem keen to act swiftly to renew a squad that has fallen into sudden and sharp decline.

The club spent around £180m in January (about as much as the rest of the top flight combined), moved Kyle Walker on and will soon say goodbye to Kevin de Bruyne, the talismanic midfielder whose craft and guile was crucial to so many trophies. The void the Belgian leaves behind will be sizeable.

City will almost certainly need to make a statement signing this summer if they want to wrest back control of the division from Liverpool. Their current alternatives at number ten aren’t going to cut it – Bernardo Silva seems to be on the wane, Jack Grealish is inconsistent at best, and Phil Foden, who looks exhausted, is probably better on the left wing anyway. Some fresh blood is required.

Enter Wirtz, a player City have admired for at least two years. They were heavily linked with the now 21-year-old last summer but Wirtz opted to remain with Leverkusen a little longer in the wake of their extraordinary ‘invincible’ season – but with Bayern Munich expected to reclaim the Bundesliga crown, it might be time for him to move on.

Just about every elite club will want him, but not every such side will have the requisite combination of big money and a pressing need at number ten to make a move. Manchester City tick both boxes – and, according to Fabrizio Romano, Wirtz is their “dream target” as they look to move on from De Bruyne.

It isn’t Barcelona. It isn’t his childhood dream realised and it the weather is a less chillier. But if Wirtz moves this summer – and his value may never be higher – he may have to settle for a big move elsewhere. Barcelona probably aren’t going to be able to raise the funds to put themselves in this market, and they don’t really need a number ten. Perhaps Manchester City’s project and the chance to work with Pep Guardiola could appeal, however…

Would Wirtz be able to replace Kevin de Bruyne?

If Wirtz did make the switch to the Etihad, then he would have some enormous boots to fill. De Bruyne is one of the best both Manchester City and the Premier League have ever had – but the stats suggest that Wirtz could manage it.

For starters, his output in the final third is right up there alongside De Bruyne’s. In City’s treble-winning campaign, arguably De Bruyne’s last great season before the injuries started to pile up, he managed 23 combined league goals and assists – Wirtz, last year, was responsible for 22, and with 19 so far this season is on track for a similar total.

Granted, Wirtz has yet to prove that he can hit the heights of De Bruyne’s absolute peak (13 goals and 20 assists in the Premier League alone in 2019/20), but few number tens will match that tally under any circumstances and that just so happened to be the only year in the last seven in which City failed to win the title.

Wirtz racked up 15.7 combined non-penalty expected goals and assists last season (which, of course, he outperformed), and that’s more than De Bruyne managed, albeit lower than the mark the Belgian hit in four seasons, 2022/23 among them.

All of which is a stats-dense way of saying that while Wirtz has yet to hit the peaks that De Bruyne has despite playing in what is probably a softer division, he is only a short way behind – and, it’s worth noting, a little way ahead of where De Bruyne was at 21, when he was shining at VfL Wolfsburg before making his ill-fated move to Chelsea.

Wirtz does not yet have De Bruyne’s remarkably precise passing range, but he is just as dangerous in pockets of space around the area and in many ways a more direct player who can, to some extent, combine the role of both De Bruyne and that of Julian Álvarez before he was sold to Atlético Madrid. Able to operate on the flanks as well, Wirtz is a more versatile edition of De Bruyne in many ways.

Wirtz would not instantly become the player De Bruyne was at his extraordinary peak, but the statistical similarities between De Bruyne at 21 and Wirtz now are remarkable, and if the German continues to develop at the pace he has so far then he could easily overtake one of the masters of the modern game, or at least reach a similarly lofty plateau.

Wirtz, simply put, looks ideal for Manchester City both in terms of how his playing style meshes with Pep Guardiola’s methods and how his game lines up with the team’s immediate needs. Perhaps a move to Manchester isn’t Wirtz’s dream – but signing Wirtz really should be Guardiola’s.