Manchester City need a savvy Savinho if youngster is to reach his potential | OneFootball

The 2025/26 Premier League campaign is one of transition for Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola and the Etihad Stadium faithful.

But with 12 games played in the domestic league season so far, the club are currently sat in third place in the top-flight table on 22 points following seven wins and a draw to their name so far.

Arsenal and manager Mikel Arteta hold a seven-point advantage in the chase for the top-flight title, but there is plenty of football left to be played and fans will rightly be expecting Manchester City to show further improvements as they move through the festive fixture crush.

Guardiola will be looking to refine his tactical tweaks further as the team’s style subtly changes this year, and undoubtedly he will be looking for far more from the summer signings as they truly settle in for the second half of the campaign.

For those fans who like a flutter and use a free bet odds calculator to help them, they will be relying on that improvement and stronger finish for their end of season predictions.

Another player that the serial winning gaffer will be looking for a lot more from is Manchester City forward Savinho. The 13-times capped Brazilian international winger has long been highly-rated, and City brought him to the club for a reported £30 million in the summer of 2024 from Troyes.

In terms of game time, he featured regularly in his first season at the club even though his potential was yet to explode into consistent goal production, but it just has not clicked for him yet so far this year.

Tottenham Hotspur’s reported £70 million interest in his services late on during the summer came out of the blue, and the board were open to a potential deal taking place if the price was right.

A deal obviously never transpired and many fans will be wondering if his head is right given his 14 appearances since then, and of course, Pep Guardiola did not select him until the middle of September given the disruption caused.

Social media posts of suitcases being packed and a curious injury told a story of their own, yet after all that he was then handed a new and improved six-year deal keeping him at the club until the summer of 2031.

The grumblings from fans concerning the thought processes behind that decision are continuing to grow with every passing match, and with Savinho failing to live up to his own hype and obvious potential, those grumblings will just keep getting louder.

Pep Guardiola appears to be keeping faith with him for now and some would point to his better performances tend to come when he is played on the right, but the manager seems to predominantly favour him as a left-sided option.

Of course, age is more than on his side and consistency is usually the last thing a player develops, but fans want far more application, far more desire, and clear improvement in his end product.

Otherwise many feel that he is now already running the risk of wasting his clear talent and becoming one of those players who just never achieves their potential because their mentality and focus is all wrong.

It also puts an early question mark over Hugo Viana and the newly-appointed sporting director’s judgment, and he already had big shoes to fill when taking over from the legendary Txiki Begiristain.