Manchester City set to permanently sell Joel Ndala to Belgian Pro League side Cercle Brugge | OneFootball

Manchester City are set to permanently sell winger Joel Ndala to Belgian Pro League side Cercle Brugge, with an agreement between the two clubs understood to have been reached, as per a new report.

The 20-year-old has been a Manchester City academy product since 2016, joining from Port Vale at the age of 10 and progressing through the club’s youth system to become one of the more productive attacking talents in its U18 ranks, where he registered 17 goals and eight assists in 41 appearances.

Despite that promise at youth level, a senior breakthrough at the Etihad Stadium proved beyond Joel Ndala, with a series of loan moves to Jong PSV, Nottingham Forest, Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday yielding limited impact across each spell and ultimately confirming that his pathway to regular first-team football lay away from Manchester rather than within it.

His most recent loan at Sheffield Wednesday ended early following the club’s relegation to League One, with Ndala having made just eight appearances before dropping out of the side in April as the Owls’ doomed campaign drew to a close.

The permanent nature of the Cercle Brugge deal is significant – rather than another temporary arrangement, this represents a clean break from Manchester City and the opportunity for Ndala to establish himself as a regular fixture in senior football for the first time in his career.

Report: Ndala set for fresh start in Belgium as City reach agreement with Cercle Brugge

According to journalist Sacha Tavolieri, Cercle Brugge have reached an agreement with Manchester City for the permanent transfer of Ndala, with the Belgian club set to sign the winger from the Etihad Stadium in a deal understood to reflect a market value of around £2.5 million.

Cercle Brugge, who compete in the Belgian Pro League and play their home games at the Jan Breydel Stadium, represent the latest stop in a well-worn pathway for City’s academy talent, with the Belgian football environment offering a more manageable and consistent platform for a player of Ndala’s age and profile than the Championship clubs that housed him in his most recent spells.

The 20-year-old is an England youth international, having represented England through the U16, U17, U18 and U20 age groups, and his decision to pursue a permanent move to Belgium rather than another loan reflects a desire for the stability and regular game time that has proved elusive throughout his loan career to date.

Tavolieri’s report adds that further details on the deal’s structure are to follow, with the transfer not yet formally confirmed by either club at the point of reporting.

What does Ndala’s departure mean for Manchester City?

The permanent sale of Ndala tidies up an academy pipeline in which director of football Hugo Viana has been making clear decisions about which talents have a future at the Etihad Stadium and which would be better served by finding permanent homes elsewhere.

Ndala is the latest in a line of City academy graduates to be permanently sold this summer, with Enzo Maresca taking a close interest in which players within the broader squad – at first-team and development level – represent genuine long-term assets for the club and which are better placed to fulfil their potential in different environments.

For Ndala, a player whose pace and directness drew comparisons to Jeremy Doku at youth level but who struggled to convert that raw potential into consistent senior output, the Cercle Brugge move offers the most significant opportunity of his career to date – regular football in a professional top-flight environment, without the short-term pressure of a loan structure hanging over each performance.

Whether he can take that opportunity and eventually return to a higher level of European football, or whether the Belgian Pro League becomes his long-term home, will depend on what he produces at Cercle Brugge once the deal is formalised and his career at the Etihad Stadium formally draws to a close.