Man City must learn from Liverpool and Man United to seal Joao Felix transfer masterclass

For over 75 minutes at Atletico Madrid's Estadio Wanda Metropolitano, Manchester United were at the mercy of a supremely confident 22-year-old.

Manchester City's neighbours travelled to Spain for their Champions League round of 16 tie amid a particularly uninspiring run of form, their saving grace being that their opponents have had been even worse of late.

Yet in the first half of the 1-1 draw, there was only one team in it, Atletico - who had lost four of ten games since the turn of the year - inspired by a resurgent Joao Felix.

City fans will no doubt be familiar with the name. The Portuguese prodigy who burst onto the scene at Benfica aged just 18, Felix attracted the attentions of both City and Pep Guardiola for his flair, striking instincts, and all-round technical brilliance.

The meeting of Felix - an attacking all-rounder who is perfectly suited to playing as a false nine - and Guardiola seemed a matter of destiny, but it never came to be. In 2019 he joined Atletico for £113m, the poster boy for a new-look Diego Simeone side divorced from the defence-first stereotype that had lingered for almost a decade.

Yet things haven't gone as planned. Various injuries have punctuated Felix's two-and-a-half years in Madrid, but he's looked at odds with Simeone's system when he has been fit. After Atletico established a healthy lead at the top of La Liga early on in the 2020/21 campaign, Cholo abandoned his ideas of expansive attack. That did not suit Felix at all.

Felix has been shunted around the team, unable to build momentum in a role. He's been deployed in many positions when he's not on the bench, from a striker, a No. 10, a winger, and even at wing-back. Wherever he's played, Felix has been shackled by Atletico's