Arslan, City part ways in first week of A-League Men preseason
Melbourne City says it has “reluctantly agreed” to part ways with Tolgay Arslan after the midfielder's made a suprise request to depart less than a week into the 2024-25 preseason.
Melbourne City has confirmed the exit of Tolgay Arslan from the club, revealing on Tuesday that it had “reluctantly agreed” to a petition to mutually terminate the midfielder’s contract.
Arslan joined City ahead of the 2023-24 campaign and quickly proved one of the competition’s best, crowned the club’s Player of the Season and Player’s Player of the Season awards after contributing 19 goals and adding a further seven assists in just 34 appearances across all competitions.
That, however, is where his contributions will end, with City agreeing to a surprise request from the 33-year-old for an early release from a contract that was set to take him through to the end of the 2024-25 season.
“Whilst it’s very disappointing to lose a player of Tolgay’s quality, especially after the commencement of pre-season training, sometimes there are factors out of our control,” said City’s director of football, Michael Petrillo.
“He’s a player we absolutely wanted to keep, and we did everything in our power to find a way for him to stay. In my 20 years of working in football, I’ve never seen an instance where keeping a player against their will ended up being a positive thing for all involved.”
Arslan had been linked with a move back to his former club Udinese during the 2023-24 campaign but with nothing eventuating, reported back to City alongside the rest of the squad last week for medical testing — featured in club social media posts with seemingly nothing amiss.
It’s believed that his request to depart came after the team’s first on-pitch session of the preseason on Monday, blindsiding City, and was agreed to the following morning.
Citing the destabilising effect that the previous offseason’s upheaval had wrought, coach Aurelio Vidmar had flagged at the end of last season that there would be significantly less turnover in his squad heading into the 2024-25 campaign.
Arslan’s exit, though, now makes it ten senior players who have departed since then, the midfielder joining the likes of Jamie Maclaren, Curtis Good, Léo Natel, Marin Jakoliš, Nuno Reis, and Scott Galloway in heading for the exit.
Fortunately for Vidmar, who signed a two-year contract extension as City men’s coach during the offseason, Mat Leckie, Andrew Nabbout, and Jamie Young all signed contract extensions to return to the club in recent months.
And in a further boost to City’s hopes of rebounding on what was a disappointing year based on their recent standards, an agreement was reached with Celtic last week to extend Marco Tilio’s loan deal for a further season.
Understood to be one of the players in the City squad paid outside the cap under the allowances contained within the CBA, it is believed that City will look to reinvest Arslan’s wage back into the squad.
However, sources have suggested that given the sudden nature of the departure, no immediate replacement is imminent.
City's first game of the 2024-25 season will come on August 3, when they travel to face the winner of a playoff between Brisbane Roar and Perth Glory in the Australia Cup’s round of 32.