It was a hot summer in Manchester, the kind that made even the Etihad’s modern glass walls feel like a greenhouse, and the city’s fans were restless. Transfer rumours were everywhere, swirling in the sticky air like gnats, and no rumour was more shocking, more debated, more whispered about in pubs and WhatsApp groups than this one: Ilkay Gundogan might leave. Again. For Turkey this time. And not just any Turkish team—Galatasaray, the champions, the lions of Istanbul who wanted to roar even louder next season.
It wasn’t just Gundogan, either. The story went that Galatasaray were plotting a double deal. They wanted Thomas Partey too. The big Ghanaian midfielder was now a free agent after leaving Arsenal, and the Turkish giants were already in talks with him. That part of the deal was simpler. Partey wanted a new chapter. Arsenal were moving on. He was ready to negotiate. But the real headline, the one that made City fans lean forward and curse into their pints, was that Galatasaray also wanted Gundogan.
Ilkay Gundogan. City captain. City hero. Veteran of countless title races, the man with ice in his veins, who had scored some of the biggest goals in the club’s history. Who could forget those late-season surges, those runs into the box, those calm finishes when everyone else was panicking? Who could forget the trophies, the parades, the fans singing his name in the rain? Now, at 34, he was supposed to be entering the final act of his career in sky blue, maybe mentoring the kids, maybe lifting one last title before calling it a day. But football doesn’t care about happy endings. Football is brutal. Business is even worse.
The reports said it bluntly: City were “open” to selling him. Not desperate. Not determined. Just open. Enough to let the vultures circle. Enough to let the Turkish giants smell blood in the water. Enough to make Gundogan’s family and agents take calls at odd hours from Istanbul numbers. Enough to make Pep Guardiola sit in his office at the City Football Academy, scowling at a whiteboard crowded with midfield names, circles, and arrows.
It wasn’t that Gundogan had become useless. Far from it. Even at 34, he was still proving himself. At the Club World Cup, he had been one of City’s standout performers, starting two of the four games in the competition. Against Al Ain in the group stage, he bagged a brace, showing the old instincts hadn’t faded. But City’s tournament had ended in disappointment, crashing out to Al-Hilal in the last 16. That loss hurt. It made the bosses think hard about the squad. About who was getting older. About who was on big wages. About who could be moved on.
