City bought Reijnders for 46 million and are selling him for 52, one season later

Tijjani Reijnders is leaving Manchester City for Al Qadsiah after one season, with the Saudi club agreeing a fee of around £52 million on Thursday. City paid roughly £46 million to sign him from AC Milan last summer. Fourteen months later they are selling him for more than they paid, which is not the usual shape of a transfer that went wrong.

One season, 47 games, and never quite a fit

Reijnders arrived as Serie A’s best midfielder of 2024-25 and played 47 times for City in all competitions, scoring seven. The numbers are not embarrassing. What they hide is that he drifted out of the side as the season went on, and by the closing months of Pep Guardiola’s final campaign in charge he was no longer the player City turned to when a match needed controlling. Guardiola left in May, Enzo Maresca replaced him in the summer, and the new manager has not found a reason to keep him either.

He trained away from the rest of the squad on Thursday while the move was being finalised, which is the clearest signal a club can send without saying anything. Personal terms are close and the transfer is subject to a medical, so this is agreed rather than done.

Al Qadsiah are managed by Brendan Rodgers, who took the job in December after leaving Celtic and lost once in his first 25 league matches in Saudi Arabia. The club finished fourth last season and are about to move into the new Aramco Stadium in Al Khobar, with the Saudi season starting next month. Reijnders is the kind of signing a club makes when it has decided fourth is not good enough.

City’s midfield is being taken apart in public

The Reijnders sale is not happening on its own. Barcelona have made two bids for Rodri and City rejected the second, worth about £55 million, on Thursday. Rodri has a year left on his contract and City are holding out for something closer to £70 million, which is the position of a club that would rather keep him but knows the clock is running.

City have also denied reports that they made a formal offer for Enzo Fernandez, whom Chelsea have priced at £120 million with a deadline of Friday evening for any club that wants him. Denials in the middle of August are worth what they usually are.

Put those threads together and the picture is a midfield in flux with 18 days of the transfer window left before it shuts on 1 September. One midfielder sold, one being bid for, and a replacement City say they are not chasing.

The Saudi league keeps taking the ones who did not settle

What makes this deal interesting is the price. Saudi clubs spent their first two windows overpaying for names in decline. Reijnders is neither old nor finished, and £52 million for a player who had a middling season in England is a serious fee rather than a retirement package.

For City it is a clean piece of business on the balance sheet and a squad problem solved. For Reijnders it is a strange career turn at this stage, and one he would probably not have imagined when he signed at the Etihad. Milan to Manchester to Al Khobar in two summers is a lot of moving for a player still in his twenties.

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