Rayan Cherki: The Rising Star at City

In Lyon’s academy, then in the first team, one thing became clear to Pierre Sage very quickly: Rayan Cherki was different.

As the French coach looked ahead to Friday’s game in South London, he reflected on a talent he insists was always destined to break through, even when the noise around the youngster said otherwise.

“It was a process with him, because a lot of people thought that he would not have success in his career,” Sage said. “I did not have this same thought. I explained to him: ‘You have a big talent, and I think you can show it in special contexts’. And he did that in his last game against Bournemouth.”

That performance has only strengthened the belief inside City’s hierarchy. Club executives have already marked Cherki down as the long-term heir to Kevin De Bruyne, the player they see carrying the side’s creative burden in years to come.

Sage, who watched Cherki grow from gifted academy prospect into first-team match-winner, always felt the raw material was there. The challenge was shaping it.

“You have to give something for the team defensively and keep your talent in attack,” he explained. “I had nothing to say to him offensively because he understood the play better than me.”

The solution for opponents, Sage suggested, is brutally simple. Starve him.

“To control him, the best thing is to prevent all the passes to him, because when he has the ball he is able to do things we don't imagine.”

Cherki, for his part, has described Sage as a footballing genius. The compliment was thrown back with interest.

“I don't know the word for higher than a genius,” Sage replied. “I am not a genius; he is a genius. To speak about something and to teach something is a step. But to do these things is another step. He is at this level. Maybe God?”

For City, that sounds exactly like the profile they want steering their future from midfield.