Manchester City midfielder Yaya Touré has hinted that he will leave the club at the end of the season to take on a “new challenges” in his career.
Up until early January, the Ivorian shone for the Premier League champions, whose sudden capitulation in this year’s competition has been attributed to him being away in Equatorial Guinea for two months helping Ivory Coast win the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. Since his return, however, his own form appears to have dipped and it is possible that he lacks the motivation to continue playing for this season’s Premier League and UEFA Champions League also-rans.
Touré told Foot Mercato: “No amount of wages will make me stay at a club if I feel that I no longer belong there or if no challenge exists for me.
“It would be unjust on my part. There comes a moment where numbers don’t stop us, it goes beyond that, even if the English press seem more interested in the numbers than the sport itself.
“For the future, I don’t know more than you do, because I will always go where I am offered new challenges. That is in my nature.”
After guiding City to a second Premier League title last season with 20 goals from midfield, the 31-year-old has been part of a team that has lost ground so drastically to champions elect Chelsea that it is now a battle to hold onto fourth place and Champions League 2016 qualification.
Ordinarily there is no disgrace in going out of the Champions League to Barcelona, but the below par Catalans barely had to raise their game to dismiss the English champions in this year’s tournament.
After being Chelsea’s only serious rival for the Premier League title barely a month ago, consecutive defeats inside a week against Crystal Palace and arch rivals Manchester United, coming at a time when Chelsea, Arsenal and United couldn’t stop winning, has put paid to City’s challenge. All that remains is to try to ensure a top four or, with a good end-of-season, a top three spot.
Touré’s performance, or indeed presence in the team has so often been a reliable barometer of how City will fare, and the man they bought from Barcelona in 2010 has been criticised recently, not least by his own manager, Manuel Pellegrini, who singled him out last week for failing to do his job.
Touré’s agent, Dimitri Seluk, retaliated by claiming City should allow the midfielder to leave if they are not happy with him. Allegedly, former City boss Roberto Mancini has been talking publicly about his desire to bring the four-time African Footballer of the Year to Inter Milan. Touré has himself spoken of the “special relationship” he shares with Mancini.
“When things are not necessarily going well in a club, the key players take the fall,” Touré said, adding:
“I am not the only one to have been attacked even if there is tendency to be harsher with me… Football is my passion, my job and that gives me two good reasons to do as well as I can.
“I accept criticism if it helps me to improve and I ignore them when their aim is simply to break me.
“When I arrived at City, Pellegrini was not the coach. Just like the players, managers arrive and leave. As I have said before, I owe it to the City fans to fight until the end of my career at this club.
“My decisions will not be affected by changes in management, but more by the challenges that will be offered to me.”
Manchester City face a resurgent Aston Villa at home on Saturday. They will be hoping the Villains are either still hungover from their defeat of Liverpool in the semi-finals of the FA Cup on Sunday or that their players’ minds will be on the Final in late May.
City are currently fourth in the Premier League, a point behind Manchester United in third and two points behind second place Arsenal, who have a game in hand – as do Liverpool, City’s threat from behind who have to bridge a seven point gap.
