Rayan Cherki finished Saturday\u2019s 2\u20131 victory over Nottingham Forest with the decisive goal and produced another emotional reaction from Pep Guardiola. The manager admitted his feelings toward the summer signing swing between exasperation and affection, a paradox he has voiced since Cherki arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlways with Rayan I had that feeling from day one,\u201d Guardiola said. \u201c[There\u2019s] moments I shout at him and moments I want to kiss him. I have that ambivalent feeling with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to allow him to express his incredible talent. We have to play better from the back so he can get more balls in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guardiola\u2019s fluctuating response to Cherki has been on show across recent weeks. The 22-year-old teed up Phil Foden against Sunderland with an audacious rabona, yet the manager still called for more \u201csimplicity\u201d from the summer signing. Guardiola added a comparison that underlined his praise and surprise: \u201cI never saw [Lionel] Messi play a cross like he has done,\u201d Guardiola argued. \u201cMessi is the best player to play the game but I never saw these kind of crosses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those mixed reactions echo a remark from another manager earlier this season. \u201cSometimes I hate my players and sometimes I love my players,\u201d the Red Devils boss admitted back in August.<\/p>\n
Cherki\u2019s transfer from Lyon ahead of the 2025 Club World Cup has quickly looked astute. After an initial secondary role at the start of 2025\u201326, he has registered 13 goal involvements in 19 appearances this term. Since the November international break he has started seven of City\u2019s 10 games, including the last six, in which he has matched that recent run with continued goal contributions.<\/p>\n
For Guardiola, the balance is clear: he must both rein in and free Cherki to maximise the talent that persuaded Manchester City to pay a reported fee of \u20ac36 million (\u00a331.4 million, $41.1 million).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guardiola oscillated between praise and frustration after Cherki\u2019s match-winning goal for City on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,969],"tags":[1081,1019],"class_list":["post-5452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}