Rayan Ait-Nouri

Rayan Ait-Nouri



Date of Birth: 6 June 2001



Current Club: Manchester City.

Previous Clubs: Wolverhampton Wanderers, Angers SCO, Paris FC.

Loan Clubs: Wolverhampton Wanderers.





International: Algeria 13 caps.

Trophies Won: N/A.





A very surprising signing for City, he is a player that is not particularly outstanding going forward, nor particularly good defensively. He struggles as an out and out full-back and even as a wing-back he is not the most impressive player. While he is very good at getting forward, his problem is that his end product once on the ball when he gets forward, is simply not good enough.



Admittedly playing for Citeh should mean Ait-Nouri's defending is rarely tested, but if he is playing at full-back, they will find his positioning suspect. At wing-back, which seems unlikely to happen, that is less of a problem, as there is an extra centre-back to cover him, but it is still an issue. He is always a weak point to be exploited by the opposition, knowing they can get in down his side and that his defending tends to be flimsy at best.



The annoying thing is that Ait-Nouri is capable of defending so much better, particularly one-on-one, as he has shown once against Mo Salah, most of the time his head and heart just is not in it. He just has not been up for it on most of the occasions, allowing people to go past him with ease and not using his brain to position himself correctly to cut off their runs. It is a totally different thing when he is getting forward, he busts a gut there, but he lacks the quality in forward areas to be fully effective.



You can see that he is a failed winger, he will often try tricks, usually they do not come off, but that will not stop him trying it again and again and again. Ait-Nouri is always looking to burst forward carrying the ball and wanting to attack, but runs out of ideas once he does get forward. His delivery tends to be head down and just put it across, hit and hope rather than picking someone out.



Though, now I have said that and picked out all of those faults, I do feel that a fired-up Pep Guardiola will fix most of those issues as he will not let players rest mentally, which has been Ait-Nouri's biggest weakness. A bit like with the signing of Rayan Cherki by Man City, Guardiola will no doubt feel that he can get him to overcome his weakness by working with him.



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