'Genius' Rayan Cherki has Man City trait that even Kevin De Bruyne couldn't match
Manchester City signed Rayan Cherki on Tuesday and the France international can replace the creativity of Kevin De Bruyne in the squad.
The task for opposition defences when facing Manchester City corners next season is simple: Prepare for the inswinger, because if Rayan Cherki is on the pitch, that is what is coming your way.
Cherki turns 22 in August, but plenty of judges are still unsure which foot is his strongest. In his stunning cameo on his international debut against Spain last week, he scored with his left foot, created another goal with his left foot, but took corners with his right foot.
Nothing sums up his two-footedness quite like his Ligue 1 stats last season, when he had 44 shots and split them evenly across left and right foot, with 22 each. As his former France Under-21 coach Thierry Henry said: "I have never seen a player in history who dribbles as quickly as him with both feet."
One of Cherki's skills is to take corners with either foot. His right-footed deliveries in that Nations League semi-final caused problems, but his left-footed cross was so good it was begging to be finished by Randal Kolo Muani.
City have got themselves a bargain with a £31million move for Cherki. For all the debates around the quality of Cherki and Florian Wirtz this summer, it's clear there isn’t a difference of £100million between their talents.
Whoever City signed was going to have the most daunting role this summer. Now it's Cherki, he knows he will be tasked with replacing Kevin De Bruyne's creativity. The Belgian is borderline irreplaceable given the impact he's had at the Etihad, but there is already excitement at seeing Cherki in blue next season. And for all De Bruyne's brilliance, he couldn't take corners with his left foot.
In a way, Cherki's path to this stage has been a relatively slow one. He was a European football prodigy years ago and actually made history over the road from the Etihad, scoring for Lyon in a UEFA Youth League win against the Blues at City's academy stadium in September 2018. At 15 years 33 days, he became the youngest ever goalscorer in that competition.
It has taken until this season for his star to really ascend, and according to Henry, that is because he has started to add the defensive work to his game, becoming more of an all-round footballer.
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“Everyone knows what he can do,” Henry told L’Equipe. “And this season, he has shown that he also knows how to do what is expected of him without the ball, that is to say, adapt to a system.
“His problem was that he had never been able to play a string of matches to show what an extraordinary player he is. But to play a string of matches, he had to do things, defensively, throughout the duration of a match.
“This season, he did it, so he played a string of matches. I appreciate this kid so much... It's just that at certain times, you had to be tough, like a father with his son. For me, we're talking about a guy who should have been battling with the others, at the very top, for a long time to see who is the best. He fell behind because it took him a while to understand... But now, he's understood.”
It certainly felt like it clicked this season. 12 goals and 20 assists in 44 games for Lyon signalled his quality, and he shone on the other side of Manchester as well, scoring an excellent goal in Lyon's 5-4 defeat at Old Trafford in the Europa League quarter-final.
Before that fixture, former Arsenal man and now Lyon right-back Ainsley Maitland-Niles praised Cherki's ability.
"He is the best natural talent I've ever seen. An absolute master, a wizard with the ball," he said.
"He is taking chances, assists and dragging us up the pitch by taking people on and nutmegging them - he is a genius."
For someone who came through the ranks at the Emirates, that is big praise indeed. Now Cherki has big boots to fill at the Etihad, but on recent evidence, he has what it takes - and a little bit more as well.