Barcelona went trophyless this season, the first in many years, while this has got lots of people talking about the woes of the club, former club midfielder, Yaya Toure has weighed in on the discussion by advising current captain, Lionel Messi to move on from the club and seek a new challenge elsewhere.
In a recent interview, the former defensive midfielder disclosed it wasn’t going to be easy for the club legend to move on but hope he eyes a move to Premier League club Manchester City.
“It is going to be complicated. From what I know, Messi loves Barcelona. He loves the city, he loves the club, he loves the philosophy there.
But if he had to leave the club, maybe he could come to City. Why? Because City have the money to buy him and there are only a few clubs in the Premier League who can afford him, to be honest.
“If he comes to City he is going to be good for City because the rest of the Premier League is quite intense and hard as well. The way Messi plays, few managers are going to love him because he just sits off to the side and does not want to defend much.
“But if he came to England, I could see him playing for City because Guardiola knows him better and he could put him in this City team to play his football. I have a little bit of doubt that he is going to leave Barcelona, to be honest. Barcelona all boils down to Messi. If Messi leaves there is going to be a massive gap.”
Yaya switched clubs from Barcelona for Manchester City in 2010 after a fall out with Pep Guardiola, who had taken over the job at the time going on to enjoying a steller number of years with the Blues.
Barcelona has had lots of on and off issues, axing manager Quique Setien, Sporting Director Eric Abidal, and are set to make wholesale changes to the first team according to club president Josep Bartomeu in the summer would lots of big names set to be offloaded.
It’s unsure whether, after many years of association with the Catalans, Messi would be willing to switch sides.
