Manchester City teenager Tom Dele-Bashiru who was touted as the new Yaya Toure is mulling over a new contract as he enters the final 6 months of his current deal at The Etihad, ACLSports.com gathered over the weekend.
Dele-Bashiru will be looking at the progress of his former City Youth and U23 team mate Jadon Sancho now at Borussia Dortmund and full England team and will be wondering if his career will be best served remaining at Man City.
The dynamic and athletic central midfielder made his City first team debut coming on as sub for Phil Foden in the Carabao Cup in 2017 at The King Power Stadium.
The youth team coaches at the club are said to rate him highly but Man City’s record of promoting youth through to the first team is not very impressive at the moment. At 19, Dele-Bashiru knows he needs to be playing football regularly.
A former England U16 international, Dele-Bashiru is still eligible to play for Nigeria. The Nigeria U20s coach is a fan and has watched him at City. “I had read a lot about him so went to watch him playing for City” says Paul Aigbogun, the Nigeria U20 coach. “Twice we sent over invites for him to come and play for Nigeria but we never heard anything back from Man City. Not even sure if the boy was aware.”
Nigeria U20s are currently in camp for that age group’s African tournament that serves as qualification series for the FIFA U20 World Cup holding later in May. Aigbogun has not given up on getting Dele-Bashiru “I am confident we will be able to qualify for Poland. When that happens I will also hope we will be able to get Dele-Bashiru to join this team”.
This is a pivotal period in the career of Dele-Bashiru in every way. If he signs the new deal at City he will certainly be rich but he is unlikely to play many first team matches for Pep Guardiola. He has to look at his former team Sancho and the progress the winger has made since leaving the Etihad.
The original Yaya Toure went to Olympiakos to make inroads into the big leagues so Dele-Bashiru might consider doing the rounds to fulfil his talents.
