Rayan Cherki: Future Star for Manchester City

Rayan Cherki’s name has been circled in red ink on Manchester City’s long-term planning board, and the man who knows him best insists the hype is justified.

Pierre Sage, who worked with Cherki throughout Lyon’s academy and into the first team, says the Frenchman’s talent was obvious long before the wider game caught on. As City executives view the 21-year-old as a future heir to Kevin De Bruyne’s creative throne, Sage sounds anything but surprised.

“It was a process with him, because a lot of people thought that he would not have success in his career. I did not have this same thought,” Sage recalled, speaking ahead of Friday’s clash in South London. He remembers a teenager who needed guidance, not doubt.

“I explained to him: ‘You have a big talent, and I think you can show it in special contexts’. And he did that in his last game against Bournemouth.”

That performance, bursting with invention and swagger, felt like a glimpse of what City believe he can become on a regular basis. The raw ability, Sage says, has never been in question.

“You have to give something for the team defensively and keep your talent in attack,” he said. “I had nothing to say to him offensively because he understood the play better than me.”

That line hangs in the air. A coach admitting the pupil sees the game quicker, sharper.

So how do you stop him?

“To control him, the best thing is to prevent all the passes to him, because when he has the ball he is able to do things we don’t imagine,” Sage warned.

That is exactly what has caught City’s eye. Club decision-makers view Cherki as a long-term successor to De Bruyne, a player capable of carrying the creative burden in the years to come, bending games to his will from advanced areas.

Cherki, for his part, has described Sage as a footballing genius. The compliment was put back to the Lyon coach. His response underlined just how highly he rates his former protégé.

“I don’t know the word for higher than a genius. I am not a genius; he is a genius,” Sage said. “To speak about something and to teach something is a step. But to do these things is another step. He is at this level. Maybe God?”

For City, the question is no longer whether Cherki has the talent. It is how quickly that “genius” can be moulded into the heartbeat of their next great side.