On deadline day, Manchester City allowed João Cancelo to join Barcelona on a season-long loan deal.
The right-back has two goals and an assist from four games, out of which a goal and an assist came in Barca’s 3-2 win over Celta Vigo on Saturday.
AS state the Manchester City owned player went from ‘hell to heaven’ at the weekend, where Barca came from 2-0 down to seal a 3-2 victory. Cancelo assisted Robert Lewandowski’s equaliser in the 85th minute before scoring the winner four minutes later.
Cancelo’s poor relationship with Pep Guardiola helped the Catalan club to take him away from Manchester City. AS have relayed a claim from journalist Oriol Domènech, who gave insight into what went wrong between the Portugal international and the manager.
In January, Manchester City suffered a 2-1 defeat against Manchester United. Guardiola wasn’t pleased with the defender’s display at Old Trafford and fielded Rico Lewis for the following three games against Tottenham Hotspur, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Arsenal [EFL Cup].
The journalist states Cancelo was visibly unhappy and started to express his frustration to his teammates when he was left on the bench for the cup tie against the Gunners.
Domènech clams this ‘did not please’ Guardiola, who then ‘immediately spoke’ to Manchester City sporting director Txiki Begiristain, and their CEO, Ferran Soriano, to remove Cancelo from the dressing room… and his stance hasn’t changed since then.
Three games in a row as an unused substitute led to the Portugal international’s ‘divorce’ with Pep Guardiola.
Prior to joining Barca, Cancelo spent the second half of last season on loan at Bayern Munich.