Fernandinho Signs Two-Year Contract With New Club Following Manchester City Exit

To stay on top in football, many believe that teams have to refresh and update their squads, never letting replacements not be found season after season.

This can create a backlog and cause further problems for the top teams across the globe when an entire golden generation retires.

Manchester City have avoided this by allowing one key player to leave a year since the summer of 2017.

Since being under the leadership of Pep Guardiola, the Premier League champions have lost a legendary or iconic player each May.

Starting with Argentine defender Pablo Zabaleta at the end of Pep Guardiola’s maiden season, Manchester City have gone on to let all of Yaya Toure, Vincent Kompany, David Silva, and Sergio Aguero leave the football club.

Guardiola has allowed for this with the club finding a replacement for each player within a maximum of two years, meaning that the club never face a major upheaval that would rock the team’s chances of success.

The latest player of this pattern has been club captain Fernandinho, who departed the club in May following the Brazilian’s guidance to a second Premier League title in just the two years that he was captain of the Etihad club.

The midfielder will join Brazilian side Athletico Paranaense on a free transfer, with a two year contract being agreed between the player and club.

During his time in Manchester, Fernandinho won five Premier League titles, six Carabao Cups, two FA Community Shields and an FA Cup, as well as captaining the club to their first ever Champions League final in 2021.

Well loved and respected by the Manchester City faithful, the gap left by Fernandinho’s departure is a hard one to fill.

The club are attempting to do just that though, as they look to sign Leeds United midfielder Kalvin Phillips this summer.

It was announced last week that an initial £42 million deal for the England international had been agreed with the Premier League champions seeing the player as perfect cover for Spaniard Rodri.

Manchester City are expected to complete the remaining formalities of the deal surrounding Phillips in the next few days.

The England international is currently still on holiday, but is expected to return to England by the end of this month.

Manchester City's full first-team squad are set to return to the City Football Academy for the start of their pre-season preparations at the start of July, before jetting off to the United States for two warm-up matches.