Tijjani Reijnders aims to emulate Ilkay Gündogan as a goalscoring No 8 for Manchester City after his €55m (£46.6m) move from Milan last week.
Reijnders has been signed by Pep Guardiola to be a dynamic box‑to‑box midfielder and the 26-year-old Dutchman is clear regarding who he will look to at City. “Gündogan is someone I can learn a lot from,” he said. “It’s nice to see him nearby and the way he does it.”
Asked whether this included the German’s ability to score via late runs into the area, Reijnders said: “That is what I did last season with Milan, being more on the scoresheet. It’s very important to score goals as a midfielder and it’s what I’m looking for; that and assists.”
Reijnders scored 10 times in 37 Serie A appearances in the past season, a sizeable increase on three in 36 in the previous campaign. In all competitions he scored 15 times in 2024‑25, compared with four in 2023-24.
“The first season at Milan I wasn’t calm in my head when I had opportunities and it was something I was thinking about in the summer after,” he said.
“I watched clips of myself when I got into those situations and tried to adapt to those kinds of things in the second season, to be calmer in front of goal. The No 8 position is why they [City] got me. Now I have to fill the No 8 and do my best to show that I should play.”
City begin their Club World Cup campaign against the Moroccan side Wydad at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Field on Wednesday, before taking on Al Ain, of the United Arab Emirates, and Juventus in their other Group G games.
Reijnders said: “We take it very seriously. We want to win every tournament we play. This is nothing different.
“It’s going to be hard, there are a lot of good teams and the weather is very hot. We’re getting used to it and we’ll be ready for Wednesday.”
With Rayan Aït-Nouri, Marcus Bettinelli and Rayan Cherki also signing this summer, and Kevin De Bruyne departing, Reijnders was asked whether there is a sense of a fresh start at City. “De Bruyne left but the base is still there,” he said. “You see what the standards are in training and outside the pitch. The boys are helping me with it all and it gives me a good feeling.
“You can always have a season like they did last season [winning nothing], after all those years – after they won four [Premier League titles] in a row, for example – and it’s up to us now to change that now and win prizes.”
