Tijjani Reijnders believes that he can improve under his new head coach Pep Guardiola, having completed a move to Manchester City.
Reijnders left the Dutch national team camp over the week to do his medical, and the move was made official by both clubs on Wednesday. Milan lose the midfielder of the year in Serie A for 2024-25, while City potentially gain Kevin de Bruyne’s replacement.
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According to Matteo Moretto, the fixed base of the transfer is set at €57m, while there are an additional €14m in bonuses. €7m of these bonuses are easy to achieve, while the rest is a bit more difficult. So, in other words, the Rossoneri can bank on getting around €64m, potentially more.
Reijnders react to move
Reijnders gave some comments to the Manchester City official channel after his move was made official and he spoke excitedly about working with Guardiola.
“It’s a great chance for me. I’ve followed him since he was coaching Barcelona with Lionel Messi. How he played there and how he brought it here is something that made me really excited to play for Manchester City,” he said.
In terms of his personal aspirations at City, the Dutch international added: “For sure, to develop myself as a midfielder – to be an even more complete midfielder. Football is about winning prizes, and I hope to win as many prizes as possible here with Manchester City.
“Everybody knows how Manchester City is playing in general with the playing style. Being dominant on the pitch against opponents and playing attacking football. That’s what suits me the best.
“I’m like a box-to-box midfielder who likes to join the build-up from the back and eventually to feed attackers and create chances. Also trying to score goals by myself sometimes.”
On the Premier League, the Dutchman said: “Everybody knows it’s the biggest competition in the world.
“If you see last season how many clubs are playing against each other for the top places, the level is incredibly high. It’s a boy’s dream to play in the Premier League. Playing in the Premier League and at that intensity, I want to feel the energy.
“I think you have to think even quicker here, especially when you play for Man City the spaces are even smaller. So that’s where I want to develop more and I’m looking forward to it.”
On winning Serie A midfielder of the season, Reijnders said: “It was a big honour, especially because we had a difficult season. To still be crowned as the best midfielder was a really big honour and I was of course very happy with that prize.
“I know as a midfielder it’s important to score goals as well. Two years ago I didn’t score that many goals in a season and I was working on it that summer, looking at what I had to do better in front of the goal and this season it worked out.”
Hear, hear! All you fans claiming Milan wanted to sell Tijani to cash out after not qualifying for champions league.
You can see that the chap wanted the move. I’m sure even if we qualified, he would have left also. He’s thinking about his career (which is not a bad thing).
Let’s blame management for what is truly their fault, and not dump every negative thing on them.
As with Tonali, Donnarumma, Hakan, Kessie and the rest, this appears to be the way for our club these days.
As for the players you mentioned, I’m sure you know each of their cases were different: the 1st was a cash out for Milan, the 2nd wanted more silverwares (champions league), the 3rd a traitor, and the last guy wanted oil money.
As everything… your analysis is either 10 grade level, or likely you are just ignoring history not remembering whT happened.
All those guys wanted to leave..
1) Tonali: didn’t want to to but also knew he had to do it. He knew the whole betting thing, we likely screwed Newcastle.
2) dollaruma, clearly not the same lied about several things to renew, raiola ran circles around Maldini(his mistake) …he did wanted to leave.
3) Hakan, comeon, anorther lying troll, made a fool of maldini(his mistake) and he left for more money and biggest rival. No desire for Milan to at least cash something for his contract as a thank you for even bring his career up at a time.
4) he wanted to leave cash in… at least it was not like the 2 above
Yes… its hard to resist to the richest and game level of City, no es bayern, el city es (arguably, richers, in a more expensive league, better more e pensive players). sadly Tiji water to gon despite being renewed, and if he wanted they would have given him another raise…….
Hard to believe how many here said so much BS over this… as bad as it was, I think milan did great, they clearly got most value over a guy that wanted to leave, he talked to alegri, he tare, etc, he was set…
A dream come true for him – great – let’s move on…
I have a feeling when he signed a renewal there was a promise to accept any reasonable offer from a select list of clubs who probably started talks with his agent in January.
Again.. making stupid supposition…if what you say would even be true, that’s when you have buy-out clauses….
This sale isn’t a “acept ANY reasonable offer”
If a player a year want to leave a a do you do… play him against his will, for him to playout his contract….
A release clause can hamper negotiations or lead to loosing value. Some times it’s strategic for a team and/or player to not want a release clause. It’s common practice for teams to have unwritten agreements with players, we read about these things all the time.
You’re quite naive if you think man city didn’t start talking to Tiji in January or even earlier. You’re even more naive if you think the renewal was meant to keep Tiji here long term. The renewal was strictly to give Milan leverage so they could recoup whatever the market value is on a player who is under contract into his 30s.
As for your second statement: “if a player a year want to leave a a do you do… play him against his will, for him to play out his contract…” wtf that even mean? You can’t even articulate your counter point? Who’s the stupid one?
Pep’s football is SO BORING to watch…. I hope it’s more fun to play it than to watch it …
No hate for him, at least he renew that make him not cheap and easy purchase for any club offer or even free transfer. he’s 27 and at his peak, maybe he can win a lot of silverware in there, something that we hardly achieve in the near future. good luck for Tij
Thank you and good bye.
Ingen plan finns med Gerry Anale. Klart alla med vett lämnar.
“Football is about winning prizes, and I hope to win as many prizes as possible here with Manchester City.”
What I retain and will emphasize: Those words need to make their way to the clowns upstairs who said the opposite. They made it clear, the Financial Scudetto is the only one they seek to obtain. You want to keep the best, to be the best, you have to aim to win, make moves towards that goal, not sustain the bare minimum.
Players are making obvious, this management did not compensate them adequately and did not reinvest the difference between what our players earn and should earn on the open market, to build a winning team.
Our lads prefer to go where that is the ambition. In the balance, print it on your sheets, we made our bed by prioritizing balance sheets over our players motives, our club’s history, what we should represent, excellence, they chose mediocrity. Sports is about pushing yourself as far as you can go without restrain. That is what an Athlete has to aspire to. Our owners and their pawns should learn from their employees, what business they are in.
Forza Milan and best of luck to Tijjani.
No one wants to leave a club that is contending for titles and in the thick of Europe’s top competition and is also paying them well. He will get all of that at City. City will keep him until he is no longer good enough to be in their team.