Manchester City may already have their very own Lionel Messi in their ranks

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On Thursday, Manchester City broke the British transfer record by signing Jack Grealish.

Also on Thursday, Pep Guardiola’s former club confirmed that their star player wouldn’t be staying on.

With Lionel Messi now no longer at Barcelona, it’s not taken long for speculation to emerge linking City and the Argentine star together.

The Manchester Evening News wrote of Messi’s departure potentially “opening the door for a shock move to Manchester City”.

But could Citizens boss Guardiola already have his own Messi now in Grealish?

City have “the most talented player” Messi compatriot has ever seen

According to Emiliano Martinez, Messi’s Argentina teammate and Grealish’s former colleague, that could well be the case.

“He is the most talented player I’ve ever seen,” Martinez previously told talkSPORT of the £100million star.

“He never gives the ball away. When I see Grealish running, it’s always a shot on target or a corner for us. He will drive past two or three players.

“I just see Messi with a right foot when he has the ball. You can’t get the ball off him.

“He’s the most talented English player and I’m surprised he hasn’t played more games for England.

“Messi is Messi, he’s the best ever.

“But in terms of training, when Jack has the ball, people don’t want to tackle him, they respect him, he can finish, he can chop, he can do everything.

“When I train with Messi for the national team, it’s the same.

“Nobody wants to touch him, he chops people, he treats players like cones. I see that with Jack here.”

Obviously if City can also get Messi over the line, then that’d be amazing and they’ll be fancied to dominate England and Europe for the foreseeable.

But if Messi goes elsewhere – PSG are apparently eyeing him – then it’s not that bad, since they’ve already got Grealish.