25/12/2024 - 13:22 GMT
Sam Sengupta
Alex Livesey/Getty Images
Former top flight winger Pat Nevin has termed Manchester City letting two players leave the Etihad an ‘utter embarrassment’ amid the Cityzens’ struggles in the Premier League.
Pep Guardiola’s team are in the middle of a meltdown and have remarkably won just one of their last 12 matches across all competitions.
While they have missed one of their key midfielders, Rodri, through injury, other players have failed to step up and the age-profile of the team is under the microscope.
Nevin, while pointing towards age as an issue that has crippled the Cityzens, insisted that Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers would have been perfect to slot into the team, but Manchester City let them go.
He termed Manchester City’s decision to part with both an ‘utter embarrassment’.
_“As the first team creaks and groans with age, eyes must be on at least two of the perfect replacements, Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers, who had literally been available under their noses for free all along, and they let them go”,_ Nevin [wrote on the BBC](https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/teams/manchester-city).
_“Pep Guardiola bats it off as best he can and there is the old PSR argument for having sold Palmer, but in reality, it is an utter embarrassment.”_
Comparing those two departures with those of Kevin De Bruyne and Mohamed Salah from Chelsea, Nevin added: _“It hasn’t quite reached Chelsea proportions._
_“They once thought getting rid of Kevin de Bruyne and Mo Salah for a combined profit of around £10m, was the height of good sense._
_“That’s the gold standard of short-sighted business decisions, but City’s recent howler looks bad enough.”_
While Palmer has excelled at Stamford Bridge, Rogers, who was sold to Middlesbrough in 2023, has done well at Aston Villa and bossed Villa’s 2-1 win over Manchester City last weekend.