It is no surprise that Manchester City are taking an interest in Wolves wing-back Rayan Ait Nouri. With his silky touch and ability to receive the ball in tight spaces, he passes the eye test for a Pep Guardiola player and has taken a step forward this season.
Even in an awkward year for Wolves, Ait Nouri has progressed. Starting 37 out of their 38 Premier League games proved his robustness and with four goals and six assists from open play, the Algeria international added end product to his game.
The talent has long been obvious since he first arrived in the Premier League from French club Angers in the summer of 2020. Ait Nouri always catches the eye with his particular penchant for stepovers and drag backs, ever keen to feel the ball at his feet.
It is a feature, even if an attempted stepover almost led to a red card at City recently, while a failed drag back saw him dispossessed for Brentford’s goal on the final day. But these are outliers. Ait Nouri ranks eighth in the Premier League for successful dribbles.
Sixty-three such take-ons is unusual for a player ostensibly operating as part of a back five for much of the campaign. But the issue of Ait Nouri’s positioning has never been a straightforward matter, as Wolves’ former assistant manager Edu Rubio explains.
“When we were there, people kind of criticised us because they thought that that we did not play him very much, so they assumed that we did not like him as a player,” Rubio tells Sky Sports, referring to his six months as assistant to Julen Lopetegui at Wolves.
“That was not true. We wanted to play him because we always thought he was a very good player. But the problem was that moment of transition. He needed to understand when to defend and when to attack. He needed to learn the trade of a full-back.
“At that time he was not really a winger, as such. But he was not a wing-back either and he was not a full-back. He was a player trying to find his best position and his own understanding of the game. He has done that ever so well.”
It is a balanced assessment of a player who can be brilliant to watch but still susceptible to lapses. In August, Chelsea’s Noni Madueke helped himself to a hat-trick in a 6-2 win at Molineux. “We had no left-back,” said then boss Gary O’Neil afterwards.
Since then, under Vitor Pereira, Ait Nouri has been moved forward to wing-back, where he has done better offensively – and defensively. He ranks among the top dozen for tackles. “He can defend,” says Rubio. “I think he is very good at one-on-one defending.”
Ait Nouri has shown this past season that he can do that at both ends of the pitch. He is the only nominal defender in the Premier League to rank among the top 25 players when it comes to winning the ball in the defensive third and the attacking third of the pitch.
The expectation, of course, is that a move to City would see Ait Nouri have more touches of the ball in possession, while the number of defensive actions required of him would dip. The fact Ait Nouri is more than a defender is part of the appeal.
Comparing Rayan Ait Nouri’s heat map for Wolves with Nico O’Reilly’s heat map for Man City
Positionally, the role of a City full-back actually requires more work in the opposition half than that of a Wolves wing-back. “His technical skill is what makes him an interesting player for teams that like, to be the main actor in possession,” says Rubio.
“In teams that build from the back and revolve everything around possession-based football, your full-backs would also be asked to invert and he can definitely deal with anything inside because of his technical ability. He could definitely play that role.
“There are things to learn. Things for him to develop would be his awareness, his position and his understanding because Man City’s game is equally positional as well as possession-based. It is very important to keep their structure and their positions.”
But crucially, Ait Nouri has demonstrated that “he is able to interchange positions” and it is this quality that sets him apart from some of the other attacking left-backs earning praise, such as Fulham’s Antonee Robinson and Bournemouth’s Milos Kerkez.
Compared to Ait Nouri, they are more straight-line players. Guardiola is likely to be attracted to the player who can move inside to support the build-up in the way that Oleksandr Zinchenko and Fabian Delph did from left-back for City in the past.
The flip side of that would be that Ait Nouri is not as physically explosive as either Robinson or Kerkez. Both players make far more sprints per 90 minutes than he does. Both players cover far more ground at high intensity than he has. It is a different profile.
“He is a different kind of player,” concedes Rubio. Although he offers the caveat that there may be more to come from the 23-year-old – something evidenced by the fact that Ait Nouri’s top sprinting speed is actually higher than that of Kerkez. Maybe he can do it.
“We do not know yet. Maybe he is not being exposed to that in his role at Wolves. Maybe he is not being asked to do that by the coach. Maybe he needs a more specific training when it comes to the physical side. I am sure he would be able to cope with that.
“I think he has everything, all the ingredients, the physique, to develop that side so I would not be too concerned. Sometimes what we see of players is also a reflection of how the team plays. Then they go to a different club and people did not see it coming.”
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Wolves’ win over Tottenham Hotspur
Whatever the truth, Ait Nouri has demonstrated that he does not need electric pace to glide beyond opponents and City players have less space to run into anyway. Somebody who can craft openings when the space is more limited might be more useful to them.
“I think his technical competency, his ability and skill in tight areas, keeping the ball close to his feet and being able to dribble, being able to get the team up the third by driving with the ball, all these things makes him a very interesting player for Man City.
“Man City might need some of those players now, players who can break lines a bit more and can get the team up the third in different ways, not just through combination play, but also through their clever dribbling as well as their pace.
“Teams are set up in a way that it is harder to get through them with just possession now. They are more resilient. Defenders are athletes as well as technically good. There has been that evolution and I believe City will have to recruit players who can do both.
“Possession is the game that Pep wants to play, technically very competent, and rightly so. But they will have to have the legs to cover the ground so they can cope with the transitions in and out of possession against teams that can sustain an intense game.”
Rubio expects Manchester City to be back winning trophies next season, regardless. But the acquisition of the classy Ait Nouri, a Guardiola player in waiting, would only help make that more likely. “I am certain he would do very well if he went there.”
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