Newcastle United reportedly want to bring former Manchester City starlet Marcos ‘Rony’ Lopes back to the Premier League from Sevilla.
There is no shame in failing to force your way into a Manchester City midfield full of top-class creative talent.
These days it’s Phil Foden stuck on the periphery of City’s star-studded side. Four years ago, Marcos ‘Rony’ Lopes was in exactly the same position.
A Brazil-born starlet whose ‘Rony’ nickname is a homage to the legendary Samba striker Ronaldo, Lopes is a left-footed play-maker rather than a powerpacked centre-forward. And therein lay the problem.
For all his potential, there was simply no room at The Etihad with David Silva, Samir Nasri and James Milner all ahead of him in the pecking order.
That is not to say that the-then City manager Manuel Pellegrini didn’t rate Lopes highly. Quite the opposite in fact.
“Marcos is a young player with a great future,” Pellegrini told The Mail in 2014 when a teenage Lopes inspired a League Cup semi-final thrashing of West Ham United. “He is just 18 years old and played with the personality he needs to play in our team.
“I’m very happy for him because he deserves to do it – and he is a very important player for the future of the club.”
Lopes was sold to Monaco 18 months later but, according to The Chronicle, he could soon be on his way back to the Premier League.
Newcastle United have scouted the now-23-year-old over ten times in recent months with Lopes now a fully fledged Portuguese international who scored 17 goals from midfield in his penultimate season with Monaco.
He’s a Sevilla player these days, having moved to La Liga for £18 million in August (Marca), but that hasn’t stopped Newcastle from wondering whether Lopes can pick up where he left off in the Premier League.
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