Manchester City have signed Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolverhampton Wanderers in a deal worth €37million (£31.2m/$42.3m).
The 24-year-old Algeria international has signed a five-year contract.
As part of this summer’s transfer coverage on The Athletic, in addition to breaking news, tactical analysis and in-depth reads, our Transfers TLDR series (you can read them all here) will bring you a quick guide to each of the key deals.
Give me their backstory in 100 words…
Born and raised in Paris, Ait-Nouri left the French capital to start his football education with Angers in the north-west of the country. He turned professional aged 16, making his senior debut six months later, and was still only 19 when he joined Wolves, initially on loan, in 2020.
The move was made permanent a year later and in the past two seasons he became a fixture in Wolves’ starting XI, excelling as an attacking force, mainly from left wing-back. Having represented France at youth levels, he switched international allegiance to Algeria, where his parents were born, and won his first cap in 2023.
Steve Madeley
What should, and shouldn’t, I expect to see?
Ait-Nouri loves to showcase his ability on the big stage, so City fans can look forward to an array and flicks and tricks to go with the Algerian’s natural athleticism and ball-carrying ability. He is also adept at weighing in with goals and assists. But despite spending much of his career playing left-back or left wing-back, he remains raw defensively, so don’t expect to see consistent excellence in that aspect of his game.
Steve Madeley
Ait-Nouri has impressed for Wolves (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
How will he fit tactically?
Left-back is an area City have struggled to strengthen across Pep Guardiola’s nine-year reign. Looking at their current squad, Ait-Nouri should, in theory, be an undisputed starter from the off.
He often played left wing-back for Wolves, with his ball-carrying standing out. Ait-Nouri combined that with a variety of chipped and grounded crosses and cutbacks to make seven assists last season in 37 Premier League appearances. He often operated high and wide in what was his final year at Molineux but is quite two-footed and capable of inverting into midfield, as he does below in December’s match against Tottenham Hotspur, in which he got two of those assists.
Defensively, Ait-Nouri is susceptible to lapses in concentration and occasionally slow to react to evolving moves. He has not played enough minutes as a specialist left-back for Wolves either.
There will be some learning and unlearning required, but the 24-year-old is a necessary addition.
Anantaajith Raghuraman
What’s his injury record?
Ait-Nouri had multiple niggles early in his time with Wolves, though none resulted in lengthy lay-offs. At Angers, his worst injury was a broken jaw which ruled him out from early January 2020 until the Ligue 1 season was halted in the March because of the pandemic, before it was later abandoned.
He has had a relatively clean bill of health over the past two seasons, featuring in 70 of the 76 league games, with 66 starts.
Anantaajith Raghuraman
Someone who knows him says…
“He’s matured an awful lot,” Wolves’ then head coach Gary O’Neil said last season in a news conference, having restored Ait-Nouri to the team following an exile under predecessor Julen Lopetegui. “I didn’t know him last year, but I’m led to believe he’s made huge improvements in his maturity and his demeanour and how he is around the place and how he trains every day. It shows on the pitch, and he’s been one of our best performers throughout the season.”
Steve Madeley
What do we know about the finances of the deal?
Ait-Nouri has joined City on a five-year deal, ending in June 2030. City have paid Wolves £31.2million for the Algeria international.
Three weeks of the fee will be accounted for in City’s 2024-25 financials, alongside Ait-Nouri’s salary for the rest of this month. Wolves’ annual accounting date was previously May 31 but has been shifted to June 30 this year, so they’ll book all of their profit on the deal into an extended 13-month accounting period covering the 2024-25 season.
Chris Weatherspoon
What impact will this have on both clubs’ PSR calculation?
Assuming agent fees of 10 per cent on the transfer, Ait-Nouri’s signing will add £390,000 in amortisation costs to City’s 2024-25 figures. Thereafter, to the end of the 2029-30 season, the fee spent here will be charged at a rate of £6.8m annually in City’s books.
Ait-Nouri’s wages at his new club are unknown, but it goes without saying that the full cost of signing him will stretch well beyond the estimated £34.3m City are paying in transfer and agent fees.
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Wolves signed Ait-Nouri in July 2021 from Angers, after he had spent much of the previous season on loan at Molineux. That deal set them back around £10m. Ait-Nouri signed a five-year contract back then which was never renewed or extended, leaving his book value now at an estimated £2.2m.
As part of the deal with Angers, Wolves agreed a hefty 50 per cent sell-on clause in respect of any profit made if and when Ait-Nouri was eventually sold on. That would make a big dent in their profit on this deal, but there was a further proviso whereby Wolves could buy out that clause. The Athletic understands the cost of doing that to be around £8.5m ($11.5m at the current rate), which looks a no-brainer when set against the £10.5m Wolves would have to hand over as 50 per cent of their profit.
Assuming they do buy it out, we estimate Wolves’ accounting profit on selling Ait-Nouri, booked into their 2024-25 financials, will be £20.5m.
Chris Weatherspoon
(Top photo: Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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