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Explained: Why Eric Garcia stayed at Manchester City despite Barcelona interest

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Eric Garcia was in talks to join Barcelona over the summer and looked destined to make the switch as he wasn’t commanding a starting place at Manchester City and has history with the Catalan giants, but the Daily Mail say the 19-year-old ended up staying at the Etihad Stadium due to John Stones’ uncertain future.

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Garcia joined City from Barca in 2017 and has gone on to make 28 appearances in all competitions. The Spanish international has made only five appearances this season, however, as he finds himself behind Aymeric Laporte, Ruben Dias, Stones and Nathan Ake in the pecking order.

Barcelona wanted to bring him back to the Camp Nou as Samuel Umtiti suffered a serious knee injury over the summer and would need replacing, but their pursuit of Garcia failed. They didn’t match City’s asking price and were rebuffed in their efforts by the player himself.

Stones looked on his way out of City last summer after playing in only 24 games from a possible 59 (40.6%) and amassing 1554 minutes from a possible 5310 (29.3%) in 2019/20, so Garcia felt he stood a chance of playing this season and opted to stay in Manchester.

His decision has backfired, however as he’s only amassed 380 minutes across the board this campaign. Garcia’s deal is up in 2021 and he’s yet to put pen to paper on a contract extension, so he might be on his way out in January or the following summer anyway.

It’s hard to see us keeping the Spaniard if he’s not playing, and Barca need a centre-back, so time will tell what happens.

In other news, Manchester City could be without Sergio Aguero against FC Porto on Tuesday night

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Sports journalist who is an avid football fan, enjoys debunking transfer rumours, loves to write pieces about players out in the cold and takes a large amount of pride getting a predicted XI 100% correct.