Artful 1v1 players and Pep Guardiola have lived a complicated life over his time at Manchester City, but the one who have thrived have done so in Premier League Best XI fashion.
Barely halfway through his first season, Rayan Cherki looks like he has the potential to fit that bill.
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Cherki, who just turned 22 in August, scored his second goal and recorded his seventh assist on Saturday to move him into a tie with teammate Phil Foden for the sixth-most goal contributions this season, trailing only Morgan Rogers, Antoine Semenyo, Igor Thiago, Bruno Fernandes, and Erling Haaland.
But those numbers only tell part of the story because they are made more impressive when put into context. And if City win the title it could be because Cherki is that rare player who doesn’t need time to find his footing in Guardiola’s system.
Rayan Cherki’s eye-popping early returns
Cherki’s goal contributions are misleading in the best possible way if you’re a Man City fan, and that’s because the Frenchman is an advanced stats defier.
That can often mean a player is having a run of great luck, but it can also mean a player often does things that defy logic. Erling Haaland, for example, has met or exceeded his xG in three of his last five seasons and is doing it this Premier League season to the tune of +2.6 goals minus xG.
Entering this week, Haaland’s 1.42 goals plus assists per 90 minutes was almost a .3 G+A higher than the second-place player and .45 more than third-place Emiliano Buendia. Cherki, you might’ve gleaned, is the second-place player.
Here’s the rub. Of the 22 players to enter Week 18 with seven or more goal contributions, 20 had played over 900 minutes (and most well over that mark). The 21st is Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard with 873 minutes.
Cherki? 554.
Yes, it’s a small sample size but even projected by two he’d trail only Haaland in goal contributions.
It’s a bid absurd to imagine that Cherki will maintain his pre-weekend league-leading 0.97 assists/90 minutes or his league-best 0.65 xA/90. And given Jeremy Doku’s status near him in some of these stats, there’s also the temptation to credit Erling Haaland and the City attack in creating some of these cartoonish returns.
But Cherki assisted Tijjani Reijnders on Saturday. He set up Foden at Crystal Palace, and assisted Foden and Josko Gvardiol versus Sunderland. It was Foden scoring off a Cherki assist to beat Leeds, and Cherki’s first two PL assists went to Haaland in Week 10.
What will Pep Guardiola do with Rayan Cherki?
Guardiola’s response when asked about Cherki’s rabona assist to Foden a few weeks back was telling in a couple of ways.
For one thing, Guardiola’s instinctive response to the question was to praise Cherki’s special ability.
“Rayan has a special, unique quality. Sometimes you love him, sometimes you hate him but he’s special — a composer mentality,” Guardiola said. “He has something that just mom and dad gave to him.”
When pressed on the rabona, however, Guardiola got a bit defiant. He mentioned that the cross was only good because it worked, and went on to mention how Cherki is young and Lionel Messi rarely pulls out those sorts of tricks, opting to do the simple so well. Was it a bit of making sure Cherki knew his place? That’s a logical reading, too.
But Guardiola also was led to recall Lionel Messi. That’s certainly not saying Cherki is going to enter the rarefied air of the world’s greatest player, but it shows that Guardiola knows the talent in front of him as well as the still untapped potential of Cherki.
It’s not to ask whether Cherki could be the key piece in tipping a title run — no one’s debating that potential. But it’s Cherki’s potential to do it for multiple seasons, something that doesn’t always happen with wingers and Guardiola. Leroy Sane led a City title charge but wasn’t a key piece for much longer. Jack Grealish, same. Not like-for-like with the next comparison, but Foden fell out of fashion for a bit following his Premier League Player of the Season campaign at the Etihad Stadium.
Cherki, at least for the moiment, looks like a player who has the potential to become part of the fabric for as long as Guardiola stays at City (another loaded statement). He can join Haaland, Foden, Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol, and Bernardo Silva as regular parts of the Guardiola era.
The pressure’s on Cherki to find the balance between witty and wise. He’s got the right teacher, if he listens to the wizard.
