Omar Marmoush: Manchester City look to ‘new Mohamed Salah’ to save their season

Comparisons between Egyptian stars inevitable following 25-year-old’s move from Frankfurt with Pep Guardiola's side in need of a lift after difficult run of form

Omar Marmoush received a rapturous reception from Eintracht Frankfurt fans before his move to Manchester City. AFP

A year ago to the day, Omar Marmoush found himself in what was effectively an audition. The role that needed filling was to be the 'new Mohamed Salah'. His team were anxious. They had not lived up to expectations. Their main talisman was injured. Somebody needed to give them fresh impetus.

The team here were Egypt, struggling their way in fits, starts and last-gasp strokes of fortune into the knockout phase of the Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast.

Salah, the Pharaohs’ spearhead and leader, had withdrawn with injury halfway through their second match. They had only drawn their first against underdogs Mozambique, and just after the crisis of Salah limping away, they found themselves trailing 1-0 to Ghana.

Enter Marmoush, whose equaliser effectively kept Egypt alive in the tournament.

And so Egypt scraped onwards, via a third successive 2-2 draw against Cape Verde, into the Afcon’s last-16 stage, where, to his surprise, Marmoush then found himself falling short in his next audition.

Omar Marmoush set to be a Manchester City player

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He was told to start Egypt’s last-16 game against DR Congo on the substitutes’ bench. Granted, Egypt have several useful players to attack from wide positions even in the absence of Salah.

But, safe to report, 12 months on from their then manager, Rui Vitoria, deciding Marmoush was not in the top two of possible Salah understudies, the judgment to leave him out that day looks perverse.

Marmoush did come off the bench against Congo that late-January 2024 night. He converted his penalty in an extended shoot-out. But Egypt ended up losing the tie.

Fast forward to January 2025 and Marmoush is joining the 21st century’s most successful Premier League club, Manchester City.

There, as a €70 million-plus signing, he can anticipate more auditions. He’s joining a team in trouble – Wednesday’s defeat at Paris Saint-Germain puts City in danger of elimination from a Uefa Champions League they won in 2023 – and, as with Egypt and Salah a year back, they are missing an injured lodestar, in their case midfielder Rodri.

It means Marmoush’s City debut will be freighted with expectation. He’ll need to look like a saviour. Coming to England, he’ll also, inevitably, be compared with breathless frequency with Egypt’s greatest modern forward, Liverpool’s Salah.

Much as Salah, seven years Marmoush’s senior, has pleaded with media and fans not to label Marmoush as the 'next Mohamed Salah', the two stars are bound to be likened now that they occupy the same rarefied air of club football in the north-west of England.

They do share certain characteristics. Marmoush is a wonderful executor of the quick counter-attack and the coolness of his finishing, especially in the course of a fabulous 2024/25 season so far with Eintracht Frankfurt – who will receive up to €80m, with bonuses, from City for the 25-year-old – has become reminiscent of Salah’s.

In 26 matches for the German club since August, Marmoush has scored 20 goals. What interests City just as much is the 15 assists he’s also provided in that period, forming a fluid partnership with the young striker Hugo Ekitike, and acting as the pivot in a dynamic attacking unit at Eintracht.

Quite how appreciated he is in Frankfurt was apparent when, anticipating the completion of his transfer to City, Marmoush bade his farewells to Eintracht supporters.

Marmoush had been left out of the line-up for last weekend’s win against Borussia Dortmund – Eintracht were protecting against any possible injury that could jeopardise the sale – but he joined the post-match serenade of fans.

The reception was overwhelmingly warm and generous. It reflected an understanding that Marmoush, ambitious to advance his career, was eager for the move to City and that Eintracht had done fine business on a player they poached on a free transfer from Wolfsburg just over 18 months ago. The ovation from the Waldstadion moved Marmoush to tears.

“I’ll never forget those moments, and the way fans and players celebrated him,” said the Eintracht manager Dino Toppmoller. “Those scenes speak volumes. We’ll miss Omar the footballer. But even more we’ll miss him as a person.”

Not least Fares Chaibi, the Algeria international who became one of Marmoush’s closest friends during their 18 months as club colleagues. Or Mario Gotze, Eintracht’s World Cup-winning Germany international, who described Marmoush as “an outstanding player and an outstanding character.”

Those sorts of endorsements tend to attach to a player whose wide portfolio of natural skills are backed up by studious application and a diligent approach to self-improvement.

Like Salah, Marmoush left Egypt for European club football young, scouted by Wolfsburg at 18 when he was at Wadi Degla in Cairo. He arrived in Germany with almost no spoken German.

He learnt to live independently, and to be patient for his opportunities to play senior football. He served his time with Wolfsburg’s feeder teams, in the regional league, through a loan spell with St Pauli in the second division and then with Stuttgart in the top tier.

The jump-start to his career path at Eintracht Frankfurt, the elevation of Marmoush to one of the most sought-after strikers in the world, owes something to the adventurous tactics of Toppmoller, but mostly to Marmoush’s hard work.

He has, as seasoned observers of the Bundesliga note, become physically more imposing, a player who wins his duels not only with turns of pace and nimble footwork but with the upper body strength to resist the most muscular markers.

He’s finessed his use of a dead ball: He’s scored three times from direct free-kicks this season and should be high in the queue at City for set-pieces within scoring range of the opposition goal.

He’ll be potent attacking from wide on the left in a City front three, a sort of mirror of the role Salah plays on Liverpool’s right. He can also lead the forward line, through the middle, or complement a more traditional target man, like City’s Erling Haaland, as a number 10; or nine-and-a-half, operating just off a centre-forward.

I’ll never forget those moments, and the way fans and players celebrated him. Those scenes speak volumes. We’ll miss Omar the footballer. But even more we’ll miss him as a person.

Eintracht manager Dino Toppmoller

The challenge for Marmoush is to fast-track his adaptation into the rigorous, detailed game plan that, under City manager Pep Guardiola, has been the foundation of City’s serial successes.

Right now, the Guardiola master plan seems unusually vulnerable. Marmoush, unlike most new City signings, joins a team searching for its bearings.

It’s a rare January that Guardiola’s City find themselves outside the top four of the Premier League, and not guaranteed a spot in the knockout rounds of the Champions League – which is the scenario after the loss at PSG.

Back in 2017, Liverpool needed the same sort of boost City are now seeking. They backed a hunch on Salah, a brilliant Egyptian who had been mismanaged at Chelsea and so, on returning to the Premier League, even after an impressive two-and-a-half years in Italy’s Serie A, heard doubts around him. Salah emphatically quashed them.

By moving to City, Marmoush confronts parallel questions about his unproven Premier League calibre. He is upgrading from Eintracht Frankfurt as the latest of several illustrious strikers to have been sold, at huge profit, by the same German club: Sebastien Haller to West Ham United; Luka Jovic to Real Madrid; Randal Kolo Muani to Paris Saint-Germain. None of those deals worked out as expected for the buyers.

But Marmoush has more to his game than Haller, Jovic or Kolo Muani. He is more mobile, sharper in his sprinting, more versatile. He may not be the new Mohamed Salah. Nor is he obliged to be. But he is under immediate pressure to help solve some of the various problems besetting City. And that’s a stern test for this very gifted Egyptian.