Manchester City are likely to be in the market for a Fernandinho replacement in the next couple of transfer windows.
At 33 years old, the holding midfielder is not likely to have many more years at the very highest level left in him.
He was handed a contract extension last January, until the summer of 2020, but it seems unlikely that he will be handed another deal at the end of that, given he will be 35.
So City will be on the lookout for someone to fill his shoes.
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If Fernandinho has one season left in him - taking him to the end of his current contract - City will hope to bring a replacement before the end of next season to bed them into Pep Guardiola's philosophy.
And if they are to go for a like-for-like replacement, who would be the best fit?
Football analyst Ray Hamill has modified Opta stats to look at who from the top five leagues in Europe has similar attributes to the Man City midfielder.
Hamill uses around 40 metrics to find similarities between players.
His method involves taking a dataset of on-the-ball events, including a combination of common features (passes, pass completion percentage, shots, tackles, as well as spatial features (where players are making these actions), and his own engineered features (xG, xG assisted, passes into box).
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All features were then transformed so they were on the same scale between zero and one, with players identical in style having a score of 1, with the complete opposite at 0.
And his analysis suggests that from the 2018/19 campaign, Arsenal and Liverpool should be concerned about a transfer approach from City this summer.
The most similar player - under the age of 28 - to Fernandinho in the top five European leagues this season, has been the Gunners' 19-year-old new signing Matteo Guendouzi.
Guendouzi comes out with a score of 0.82 - so only 0.18 difference between him and Fernandinho, according to Hamill's statistics. Liverpool midfielder Fabinho is also very close in style to the City star, having a 0.81 similarity.
Lyon's Tanguy N'Dombele and Chelsea loanee Mateo Kovacic come out at 0.8 similarity.
For the full results and statistical analysis, go to Hamill's website here .
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