This Manchester City team has two major weapons that their rivals do not have. In Gianluigi Donnarumma and Erling Haaland, Pep Guardiola’s side has the best goalkeeper and striker in football. Both of those players have been superb this season and their strong performances at times have been key to City picking up valuable points this season. There now looks to be another wildcard that emerged for City in recent weeks. That is Rayan Cherki. With how well Cherki has adjusted to life at City and with how well he has been playing recently the French international looms as another weapon that Manchester City have that their rivals do not.
Rayan Cherki offers a lot more to Manchester City than goals and assists.
Rayan Cherki’s statistics for this season provide a glimpse of his impact this season. In eighteen appearances he has scored four goals and added seven assists for Manchester City. Those are exceptional numbers for a player who only joined City last summer. They are also exceptional for a player who missed two months of action due to a thigh injury. But they only tell part of the story of Cherki’s impact on Pep Guardiola’s side.
822 minutes played.
🤯 @rayan_cherki pic.twitter.com/L5ZuOzXSyY
— Manchester City (@ManCity) December 22, 2025
Rayan Cherki has added the ability to produce the unexpected and spectacular to Pep Guardiola’s side. The French international can break open a game in the blink of an eye. Perhaps no other piece of play explains these traits more than Rayan Cherki’s ridiculous piece of skill to set up Manchester City’s second goal in their 3-nil win over West Ham on Saturday. Cherki turned a challenge into a ridiculous piece of skill. He then surged at the West Ham defence, played the ball to Erling Haaland who then slipped the ball across to Tijjani Reijnders to give City a 2-nil lead. The goal came from Rayan Cherki’s wizardry and that snippet of play shows what Cherki adds to City that their rivals do not have.
Cherki. Haaland. Reijnders. Goal ⚽️
The perfect @ManCity combination 👏 pic.twitter.com/VFiwi9TSOD
— Premier League (@premierleague) December 20, 2025
No other team has a player like Cherki who produces the unexpected.
Players who can produce the unexpected to break open a match are worth their weight in gold. Manchester City have been blessed to have Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva in their ranks and others over the past fifteen years. They now have Phil Foden, Jeremy Doku and Erling Haaland who can do exactly this. But Rayan Cherki is a one-of-a-kind player and Manchester City’s rivals don’t seem to have the equivalent of Cherki in their ranks.
Rayan Cherki is a player who can produce the spectacular at the click of a finger. He can see things that other players do not. The French international is a rare mixture of vision and exceptional technical ability. There is no other player like him in the Premier League. Not one that I can think of with Cherki’s blend of vision, skill and ability to produce the spectacular in any circumstance. In a league that looks to be so tight this season, Cherki could be a wildcard that Manchester City have that their rivals do not.
Rayan Cherki is fast becoming a key player for Pep Guardiola’s side. It is a credit to him that he has adapted to life at Manchester City so quickly. If Cherki’s form holds and he continues to grow as a player he looms as a valuable weapon to City and one that Manchester City’s rivals do not have in their arsenal.