Gary Lineker has suggested that Manchester City made a big mistake during the previous summer transfer window.
After the Blues won the Treble, the following summer window ended up being a busy period for the Manchester club behind the scenes, with numerous players making moves in and out of the club on temporary and permanent deals.
Now that the current season is heading into its final stages, one pundit has pinpointed one deal the Citizens struck last summer as being a particularly bad one.
Lineker says Man City made a ‘stupid’ decision last summer
Speaking in a recent edition of The Rest Is Football, Lineker had this to say, in a light-hearted manner, after sharing his verdict on the hypothetical situation of who he would buy, bench and sell out of Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and Cole Palmer.
He said: “It makes me feel slightly queasy to put Saka on the bench and sell Palmer, because who would want to sell a player that good, only Manchester City would do something that stupid.”
After making 105 appearances for the Blues across their youth and senior sides in all competitions, scoring 48 goals and delivering 21 assists in the process, the winger was sold to Chelsea in a deal worth over £42m last summer.
Since then, the 21-year-old has made 37 appearances for his new club across all competitions and has found the back of the net 19 times and supplied 13 assists.
Cole Palmer has shone at Chelsea
With 26 Premier League appearances to his name in his debut season at Stamford Bridge, the former City academy star has had more shots at goal (69) than any other player at the west London club.
He has also made more key passes (52), shot-creating actions (119) and goal-creating actions (17) than any other Chelsea player.
His overall performances have earned Palmer an impressive season rating of 7.34/10 from WhoScored, making him the eighth-highest-rated player in the division.
Taking all of that into account, it’s safe to say that the Englishman has flourished in his first season at Chelsea.
It also makes it fairly easy to see why Lineker, even though he may have been saying it tongue-in-cheek, thinks the Manchester club may have been rather foolish to let a player of Palmer’s talent leave.