Guardiola confirms Manchester City striker is on brink of leaving

Pep Guardiola expects Kelechi Iheanacho to complete a move away from Manchester City by the end of next week.

Iheanacho dropped down the pecking order under Guardiola last season and does not feature in the Spaniard’s long-term plans at the club.

The Nigeria international has been heavily linked with a £25m move to Leicester already this summer and Guardiola has confirmed he will leave the club in search of regular first-team football.

“Kelechi is a young player,” the Manchester Evening News quote Guardiola as saying on Wednesday. “As a manager it is an honour to work with him. It was not easy for him, I didn’t give a lot of chances.

“He decided to stay in Manchester [instead of going on tour] and maybe next week he will finish [his move away].

“We have an option to take him back. We believe he deserves to play at that age. That’s why we decided what’s best.”

Guardiola is determined to sign Alexis Sanchez from rivals Arsenal this summer and his potential arrival would only push the 20-year-old further down the ranks at City.

Iheanacho was dubbed as City’s answer to Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford when he burst onto the scene under Manuel Pellegrini during the 2015/16 campaign.

In fact, of players that have scored at least 10 goals in the last two Premier League seasons, Iheanacho has scored more frequently than any other player (1 every 106.5 minutes of action).

Furthermore, only Fernando Llorente (28.8%) has a better conversion rate than Iheanacho (24%) in that period.

For more stats on Kelechi Iheanacho, click here to visit his WhoScored player page