Last week, ahead of the Manchester derby, Kevin De Bruyne announced he will be leaving Manchester City at the end of the season, upon the expiration of his contract.
Pep Guardiola declared this a “sad day” for everyone connected to the club, hailing the Belgian as “one of the greatest” players to ever grace the Premier League with his presence.
Considering De Bruyne scored 106 goals and registered 176 assists in 414 appearances for the Citizens, so far, winning 16 trophies, it’s easy to understand why.
This news, of course, immediately sparked plenty of transfer rumours, speculating who the Sky Blues may target to fill this gigantic void, but do Man City already boast a “future superstar” capable of becoming the next De Bruyne? Could they save themselves millions this summer?
Manchester City's interest in Wirtz and Gibbs-White
As reported by David Ornstein of the Athletic, Manchester City have both Florian Wirtz and Morgan Gibbs-White ‘among the options [they] will consider to replace’ the outgoing Kevin De Bruyne.
Adrian Kajumba and Lyall Thomas of Sky Sports outline how incoming sporting director Hugo Viana is driving much of the Citizens’ recruitment strategy, stating that he is ‘monitoring many players’.
TalkSPORT host Max Scott believes Gibbs-White has been “one of the best players in the Premier League” this season, with the Englishman having scored five goals and accumulated nine assists for Nottingham Forest.
Meantime, Ruairidh Barlow of Football España labels Wirtz a ‘generational talent’, citing Stephan von Nocks’ report in Kicker that claims the 21-year-old is likely to leave Bayer Leverkusen at the end of this season.
Of course, both are unquestionably high-quality talents, but do Man City already boast a bigger future star on their books?
Man City teenager could be the perfect De Bruyne replacement
Manchester City signed Claudio Echeverri from River Plate for a reported fee of £12.5m back in January 2024, before the teenager spent the remainder of the calendar year back on loan with la Banda.
His arrival in Manchester was then delayed further, as he was allowed to compete at the South American U20 Championship in Venezuela, a key figure in the Argentina team that finished second at the tournament, scoring six goals in nine matches.
Analyst Ben Mattinson labels Echeverri a “future superstar”, while journalist Guillem Balague believes he will be among the “next sensations” of Argentine football.
Meantime, writing in the Guardian’s Next Generation of 2023 series, Juan Carlos Pasman praises his ‘excellent close control and dribbling skills’ as well as his ‘exceptional first touch’ and ‘first-rate’ passing ability, labeling him a ‘classic number ten’.
As noted by Pro Future Stars, Echeverri ranks as the third-best ‘infiltrating midfielder’ aged 21 or under, as per CIES powered by Wyscout, so let’s assess his career statistics so far.
River Plate
48
4
8
Argentina U20s
12
6
3
Argentina Olympics
4
1
0
The table outlines both that Echeverri has end-product, especially showing this for Argentina’s U20s, but that he is also very inexperienced, having played a little over 2,500 minutes at senior level for River Plate.
Thus, he is still yet to feature in a matchday squad for Manchester City, hoping that Guardiola will hand him his debut before the end of the season, or perhaps during this summer’s Club World Cup.
So, while it is probably a big ask to expect Echeverri to replace De Bruyne straight away, he is certainly showing the potential to do so one day. As such, the Citizens could potentially save themselves from forking our for the likes of Wirtz and Gibbs-White this summer.
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1 ByJoe NuttallApr 10, 2025