By: Omar Jatta 

Is this the biggest hint that Yaya Toure’s time at Manchester City is drawing to a close?

Following the decision to leave the Ivory Coast captain out of City’s UEFA Champions League squad for 2016/17 season.

City were forced into the decision because of the number of homegrown players allowed to be included in the 25 man squad, eight of which should be home trained, and City are behind on their numbers, so Toure was the only one Guardiola was ready to sacrifice, which says a lot about what his former manager at Barcelona thinks of him.

The 33-year-old is not having the best of times  under the Spanish manager, who is yet to feature him in any of City’s opening three games and this decision could further strain their already tender relationship.

The Ivory Coast midfielder has been one of City’s most important players since Guardiola allowed him to leave the Nou Camp for the Etihad in a £24million deal six years ago, winning two Premier League titles, the FA Cup and two Capital One Cups.

Many expected him to play an integral part for City under Guardiola in his first season because he is one of the only players at the club who had worked with the Spaniard along with  former Barcelona youth prodigy, Nolito, who also had sometime with the former Bayern Munich manager. It was thought they can help the rest of the squad understand his style of play but by the look of things Yaya might be central to his plans.

The decision to leave Toure out of the Champions League squad has infuriated his agent Dmitri Seluk who has since called the decision disrespectful and said it will cost City their African fan base.

“They will lose a lot of millions of supporters from Africa because of this decision from Guardiola,”Seluk said, in an interview with the Daily Mail.

“Now they will support Manchester United. A lot of people in Africa say they will never see any more matches of City on TV.”

Toure is out of contract at City next summer, and Seluk expects his client to have a host of offers on the table.

“Yaya in January can sign a pre-contract agreement with clubs abroad,” Seluk said.

“He will have many offers from clubs. China and America of course they want him but we will have a lot of offers from England and Europe.

“He is in very good shape, very good condition, I think he lost seven kilograms.

“Maybe that’s not good enough for Guardiola, but then Zlatan Ibrahimovic wasn’t good enough for him (at Barcelona).

“In January we will see. It is three months to wait – no problem. Yaya is a very professional guy.”