Joao Cancelo made headlines over the weekend after making some fiery comments regarding his exit from Manchester City – and pundit Ally McCoist believes there’s one key reason why the full-back made them.
Cancelo is currently on international duty with Portugal, but conducted an interview with the Portuguese outlet A Bola.
He denied suggestions that he had reacted negatively to being dropped from the Manchester City starting XI last season.
Cancelo fell out of favour around the start of 2023, with Pep using the likes of Rico Lewis and Nathan Ake more.
Cancelo was reported to have fallen out with Pep about the amount of minutes he was getting, and the player then completed a loan move to Bayern Munich.
In the eyes of Ally McCoist, there is one crystal clear reason why Cancelo has now spoken about Pep and his exit…
Ally McCoist thinks new Joao Cancelo interview suggests he really wants to leave Manchester City
It has been suggested for a while now that Cancelo is not keen to return to City.
Pep could have reintegrated him last summer, but clearly, there are still some issues and he was loaned to Barcelona.
Recently, the player declared that he would very much like to sign for Barcelona permanently, and there have been reports the Spanish giants are ‘increasingly confident’ of doing that.
In the eyes of McCoist, Cancelo’s new comments are a clear indication that he wants to leave City this summer.
Asked by Jeff Stelling on talkSPORT why Cancelo would want to speak out like this, he said: “It’s glaringly obvious! Because he does not fancy a move back to Manchester City. He’s had a pop just to make sure.
From where I am sitting, there is nothing that has been more staged managed in my life. Pep, just to be reminded, I know you don’t want me but just in case you do, have some of this!”
Cancelo comments could force City to reduce their asking price
It now seems that there is zero chance of Cancelo ever playing for City again, certainly in any competitive game.
There was probably no real need for the player to do this most recent interview. He has already spoken about his exit from City a couple of times.
But perhaps he felt as though speaking now will help him secure his permanent exit this summer.
There might have been good intentions behind him doing the interview – perhaps he has been sick of all the talk about him and wanted to put his side across.
Whatever the reasons, it does slightly come across as though he’s trying to secure a permanent exit, and is perhaps putting pressure on City to lower their valuation of him so that Barcelona can buy him.