CITY SPECIAL City’s vision for future is the Blueprint

CITY might be struggling to get Ilkay Gundogan to commit his future to the club, but the Blues have shown plenty of efficiency when it comes to new deals this season.

Director of football Txiki Begiristain and CEO Ferran Soriano have been proactive when it comes to new contracts and the result is the nucleus of a young squad tied down at the Etihad for years to come.

Since last summer Ederson, 25, Aymeric Laporte, 24, and Bernardo Silva, 24, have all signed new contracts that will keep them at the club until 2025. Phil Foden, 18, committed his future to 2024 and Raheem Sterling, 24, until 2023.

Whatever Gundogan decides to do about his contract, which expires in the summer of 2020, it’s been a successful season of renewals for City.

But the most striking element of the extensions offered to Ederson, Laporte and Bernardo is that there was no rush to get new deals signed. Ederson was offered a new deal just a year after signing for the club, signing an extension in May 2018 to a contract that still had five years to run.

Laporte and Bernardo were in similar situations. The Portuguese midfielder’s existing deal was running until 2022 and Laporte’s until 2023.

Not only did all three deals tie key players in Pep Guardiola’s side down for the long term, but it rewarded all three players for their performances over a sustained period of time.

All will have banked pay rises for signing their new contracts.

By taking such a forward-thinking approach to offering players new contracts, City are offering an incentive to the rest of the squad.

Perform over a period of time and you can earn yourself a new contract, extra security and perhaps a pay rise in the process.

It was performances that moved City to offer new deals to Ederson, Laporte and Bernardo.

Ederson was so impressive in his first season that he earned a new deal after a campaign, while Laporte had been at the club for 13 months before City recognised he had earned improved terms. If the rest of City’s squad see their team-mates getting new contracts on the back of performances then they know what they need to do to earn a new deal of their own. City might be different from some Premier League clubs in having the funds to bump up wages on the back of performances, but they’re also different from some clubs in being willing to do that with their best players. The proactive approach taken by the champions is not only inspiring the rest of the squad to prove they are worthy of a new contract, but it’s also protecting their assets and getting the outline of a squad in place for the long-term. It’s an approach that the rest of the Premier League is yet to follow. While City have three players on deals ending in 2025, the other 19 clubs have just two players on such long-term deals - Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga and West Ham youngsters Grady Diangana. It wouldn’t be a surprise if there were more to follow in signing longterm contracts.