The next move for Canada's dynamic duo
The next move for Canada's dynamic duo
Where should David and Davies go next?
The transfer window served up a bit of a surprise today when a disgruntled João Cancelo was moved to Bayern Munich after, apparently, trying to fight Pep Guardiola in a dispute over playing time.
As much as I want to dig into this from a Manchester City perspective this is a Canadian soccer blog, so we are going to look at it from another, more hoser-related, perspective.
Cancelo is a left-back. Alphonso Davies is also a left-back (he is, left-wing truthers. He’s a left-back now). They both play for Bayern Munich. That might not be good for Davies.
It’s not something to completely dismiss out of hand, but it will probably be fine. Cancelo can play on the right and it seems more likely that Bayern will go with a truly terrifying full-back combination talent wise. Still, it makes one wonder what Davies next move should be.
He still has two years on his contract, but in the modern game that really means that its only a year until he will be looking to either extend his time at Bayern, or make a move elsewhere. It’s been suggested that Real Madrid might be interested, although the rumours haven’t truly heated up.
It’s rare air stuff for a North American player and if he was to move to the Spanish giants he would almost certainly be set for life with the money he would make. I mean, he’s probably doing just fine now too, but Real Madrid is on another planet that way.
It’s also pretty clear that he will have a choice of where to go. The question, then, is where should he want to go? Or, to address what Canadian fans will want to talk about, where should he go to continue his development?
We will all have our own ideas here — I think the Premier League should be his league of choice, as it will give him a greater week-after-week challenge and would demand he improved areas of his game (positioning and crossing come to mind) that he wouldn’t necessarily have to in Germany or Spain, at the clubs he would be at.
As far as what club I think he should go to…well…we all are going to have our own ideas, but I suspect there are only a couple that could afford him (and one of them suddenly needs a left-back…)
Davies, of course, isn’t the only Canadian that fans are/were hoping for a bigger move. There remains a desire for Jonathan David will move on from Lille.
As I wrote in last week’s Canadian soccer news round-up post (that will be for Patreon and Substack subscribers only moving forward), that’s a bit more complicated. Unfortunately, David finds himself as a bit of a “Tweener,” right now. Valued at about 45 million quid, he isn’t affordable to the Champions League teams from Tier 2 leagues, or Europa League teams in Tier 1.
That means the biggest clubs in the biggest leagues have to be the ones going in for him and, sadly, that interest has cooled, it seems. He’s doing everything that he can to draw attention — he has 12 goals this season, tied for third best in the league — but he’s starting to age out of the prospect range.
Lille isn’t a club that will sell him at a loss either.
So, what should his next move be?
Again, we are all going to have different ideas here. Ideally, for me, he could slot in at a mid-size Premier League team, but, as stated, the price point might not work.
To me, that adds up to his best move being to extend at Lille, if a big offer doesn’t come his way this summer. As he gets older, his price will drop and those mid-table sides could come back in.
However, let’s hope he makes this blog redundant by tearing it up in the second half, leading Lille back to Europe, and getting back on the radar of the bigger clubs.
This space is supported by Patreon or through subscribing through Substack. For $2 a month or more you will receive Bits n’ Bites, a Canadian news round-up that touches on every pro team in Canada.