Pep Guardiola hasn’t ruled out re-signing Douglas Luiz from Aston Villa next summer.
The Brazilian midfielder joined the Villans for around £15million last summer after having failed to get a work permit to play for the Cityzens, and he has impressed for Dean Smith’s side so far.
The 21-year recently earned his debut call-up to the Brazil senior squad, and he is proving to be more and more difficult to leave out of Smith’s starting line-up, despite facing heavy competition from Marvelous Nakamba, John McGinn and Conor Hourihane.
City have a buyback clause in Luiz’s Villa agreement, meaning they can bring him back to the Etihad next summer if they so wish to.
Speaking before Manchester City’s game against Aston Villa on Saturday, where the defending Premier League champions beat Villa 3-0, Guardiola said he would continue to monitor Luiz’s progress ahead of next summer. As reported by Manchester Evening News, Guardiola said:
He would be here if a work permit were possible if the Premier League said it would be possible but now he is at Aston Villa.
We have an option to get him back but sometimes life is like this. We wanted him because last season we had problems in that position because we didn’t buy a holding midfielder.
We wanted him before so we thought about it but the rules with the work permit meant it was not possible. I thought he would be here with the pre-season he played last year in the States, he was really good. I think he had the quality to play with us but he could not do it.
The talent is always there, we’ll see at the end of the season what his level is but the quality is always there.
Read Aston Villa Verdict
This would be a blow for Villa who look to have signed an exciting talent in Douglas Luiz. His career is still in it’s infancy, and it would be disappointing to lose him before he has really succeeded with the club.
City’s buyback clause will likely be significantly higher than the fee Villa paid for him originally, so the Midlands club would make a profit on the midfielder should he be brought back to Manchester.
It seems difficult to imagine City exploring this option instead of recruiting elsewhere, but the problem could be in whether the champions see sell-on potential, where the club could buy him back only to sell him on for a greater profit.
