İlkay Gündoğan deal has become official according to Fabrizio Romano.
![Wink](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
https://x.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1826186178527175122He is back at Manchester City. Guardiola was already looking forward to his return. However the contract is only one-season long. Maybe after that he might look for new adventures or even retirement. He is joining on a free transfer and probably won't cost too much in salary either. I'm happy to see him back in the PL. He had a really good chemistry at Manchester City.
The only thing I wonder is whether we will see him in the starting lineup right away? Probably as a CM?
![Huh](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/huh.gif)
Fabrizio just tweeted that it's done deal, Ilkay is going back. I do not know why he had to leave if he could have stayed though? I mean if he had the chance to stay, if he could come back, then what was the point of spending a few seasons at Barcelona? He had a perfect system that worked for him at City, and he did amazing there, and won cups and he even helped on the last games with marvellous goals too, and he was loved there, he had no reason to leave. Was it like some contract issues, like they could not agree on the money or something?
I do not believe that Barcelona would be willing to pay more, that doesn't sound reasonable, City could have kept him. In any case, it's a done deal and "here we go" basically, he is going to keep playing at City for a few more seasons.
From what I can see the talks are about two seasons contract, which would be very good for him, I do not think that it's going to be bad at all, two seasons of Ilkay would definitely help City. While he was gone, he lost his starting position, by the end he wasn't starting anyway, so I think he is going to be the number one midfield bench option for this season and would be amazing to help with players resting from all this many games too.