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Tijjani Reijnders enjoyed a fine start to his Manchester City career but he's found it tougher going since his impressive debut at Wolves.
Manchester City midfielder Tijjani Reijnders has been tipped to thrive under Pep Guardiola, despite his recent struggles at the Etihad Stadium. The Dutchman hit the ground running in his first Premier League appearance against Wolverhampton Wanderers as he scored on debut and set up another in a 4-0 win.
Until Tuesday night's 5-4 thriller against Fulham, that had been the 27-year-old's only goal for his new club. He doubled his City tally at Craven Cottage but some have started to question whether Reijnders will be the player City hoped he would when they signed him for over £46million in the summer.
Reijnders scored an impressive 15 goals in all competitions last season for AC Milan but he will do well to get anywhere near that total this season. At the weekend, the midfielder dropped to the bench in the only change from the victory at Fulham, with Rayan Cherki coming into the starting XI. Cherki excelled given his chance to shine, with Guardiola even likening the Frenchman to Lionel Messi.
Reijnders looks set to face a battle to win his place in the team back, but Italian football expert at Football Italia Lorenzo Bettoni believes what Reijnders did at AC Milan last season will see him come good for City.
"What I can say from the Milan perspective is the leap from Reijnders’ first season and Reijnders’ second season was huge," he said. "Of course it doesn’t mean to say he is going to struggle to adapt and then he is going to become a superstar for Man City.
"But in his first season, he got four goals and four assists across all competitions. Last season, he finished with 15 goals and five assists. So maybe it is a little bit about time, maybe it is a little bit about adapting to a new playing style, to a new league."
Despite Bettoni being confident Reijnders will come good at the Etihad, he did add that the differing styles of play at Milan and City could be causing the summer arrival some issues.
He continued: "I suppose Man City like to keep the ball under Pep Guardiola and this is something Milan tried to do last season as well but if you look at his goals and assists from last season, 60 per cent of goals come from counter attacks. His positioning and running into the space is amazing.
"He was always able to find the right place inside the box or on the edge of the box and the finishing was amazing, really. But many of these goals came from counters, so maybe he finds himself in a position which he didn’t find himself in at Milan.
"He is a very smart player, he is a player with quality in his feet and things don’t just happen from one day to another. Even seeing how he improved from his first campaign to his second, I would say it is only a matter of time before he fulfils his potential."
Reijnders is of course not the only former AC Milan player to have moved to Manchester in the summer transfer window. Gianluigi Donnarumma traded PSG for City and has made an immediate impact at the Etihad.
Donnarumma has received some criticism in recent weeks for his game management tactics. Bettoni believes this has been blown out of proportion somewhat, but he is hopeful Guardiola will be able to develop the goalkeeper into a leader.
Bettoni concluded: "He has joined one of the best coaches in football history, he is the national team captain. I would say he is the best player we have in the country. We have many good players but Donnarumma is the best.
"He received a little bit of criticism during the last international break because Italy had lost 4-1 to Norway. It is a really minor criticism that he received from some media but he is considered to be the best player we have in the country because he is a Champions League winner, he played at PSG and won many titles over there and now he has joined one of the biggest clubs in the world.
"And he is the captain but he still doesn’t have the aura and the personality of the big captains in the Italian national team, but sometimes we tend to forget, he has been around for so long, but he is still only 26.
"This Manchester City experience, playing under such a big coach and with so many big teammates and big stars, will help him to develop leadership and attitude which he currently partially has but he needs to work on it as, again, he is still pretty young. We know he has some areas of his game which he needs to improve and especially in his leadership skills because we need him - he is our captain."
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