Pep Guardiola wants Man City to sign 30-goal striker this summer
Pep Guardiola says Manchester City are in the market to sign a new 30-goal striker to replace Sergio Aguero, but doesn't want his team's goalscoring burden to fall on a single player.
City charged to the Premier League title this season and will contest the Champions League final next weekend, and they've done it all without one primary source of goals. They have six players in double figures, but Ilkay Gundogan is their top scorer so far with 17.
Gabriel Jesus' 12 goals in 40 appearances is a fairly modest return while Aguero has netted just four times in his injury-hit final season. And while the goals being spread around the team is a sign of a strong squad, it has been identified as an area where City can improve.
90min recently learned that they are monitoring Lautaro Martinez's situation at Inter, while they continue to be linked with Tottenham hitman Harry Kane. The Daily Star are even reporting that City tried to sign Kane in January, and while Spurs rejected their offer then, it may have been City's interest that fuelled his desire to leave.
Speaking ahead of their final day clash with Everton, Guardiola admitted City are in the market for a new striker. He said it would "help a lot" in their title defence if they had a forward hitting 25-30 goals, but doesn't want to see any one player take on sole responsibility for scoring.
Excl: #ManCity, #Chelsea and #Liverpool have asked #Inter to keep them informed of Lautaro Martinez's situation. He could be available for less than £70m, owing to Inter's huge financial problems.[@90min_Football]https://t.co/fo7dCBCXDJ
— Toby Cudworth (@Toby_Cudworth) May 12, 2021
“I would love to have a guy who scores 50 goals, but at the same I don’t like just to have all the pressure on one player," the Spaniard said. "Even at Barcelona, Lionel Messi scored more than 50 goals every season, but in our first season Samuel Eto’o scored a lot.
"To win titles, especially the Premier League, the statistics speak for themselves – you need at least three guys scoring more than 10, 12, 15 goals to be competitors. But when you have a guy who scores 25 or 30, it helps a lot.
“We will try due to the way we play to have everybody involved in scoring goals – the more players we have with this quality the better we will be.”