Manchester City stance on Claudio Echeverri loan revealed after public Pep Guardiola warning | OneFootball

Manchester City officials have put their foot down and make their stance known on Claudio Echeverri’s loan mess as doubts circle over the midfielder’s Bayer Leverkusen future, as per a new report.

Echeverri has struggled for minutes since he went against his parent club’s wishes and joined Bayer Leverkusen on loan for the 2025-26 campaign – with Manchester City wanting the 19-year-old to follow Vitor Reis on loan at sister club Girona in Spain.

However, Echeverri’s representatives were keen on a move to Germany – a decision that Manchester City were not in favour of in the summer and one that has come back to haunt the Argentine star’s prospects at the Etihad Stadium.

Pep Guardiola aimed a sly dig at Echeverri’s “beautiful agent” in the days leading to his side’s 2-0 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen in the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday, underpinning fractured relations between the club and the former River Plate star’s camp.

Echeverri arrived in England in January and was expected to follow in the footsteps of Julian Alvarez – who joined Manchester City from River Plate in 2022 and went on to a have as successful a two-year spell at the Etihad Stadium as any player in the club’s history before joining Atletico Madrid for £82 million last summer.

City sanctioned a host of season-long loans for young, up-and-coming talents in the first-team in the summer amid a wider squad overhaul orchestrated by director of football Hugo Viana in his first transfer window at the Etihad Stadium.

Having failed to pay heed to City’s loan advice, Echeverri and his representatives face difficult talks with his parent club ahead of the January 2026 transfer window – wherein the Blues could look to recall or reposition the Argentine teenager.

Echeverri has just not played enough in Germany in the first half of the season and will want to correct the record and make up for a his entourage’s misjudgement in the summer by enjoying a positive second half of the campaign.

A new report from Argentine journalist Germán García Grova, as relayed by Sport Witness, has indicated that Echeverri is keen to cut his Leverkusen loan short and return to boyhood club River Plate for the second half of the 2025-26 season.

It has further been stated that Leverkusen would have no real issue with sanctioning a parting of ways with the teenager, whose time in the Bundesliga has been far from ideal and has not gone down well at the Etihad Stadium.

However, Manchester City remain firm in their desire of keeping Echeverri in Europe to progress his development in a competitive environment that would better meet the standards of the Premier League – should Guardiola want to integrate the playmaker into his ranks in the seasons to come.

It is unlikely that Echeverri and his representatives get their wish this time and Manchester City will be hell bent on cleaning up the mess the Argentine star has gotten himself into and making a decision of their own accord over Echeverri’s short-term future.