Tommy Doyle: Who is Hamburg's Manchester City-owned midfielder?
After being kitted out with a five-year contract by Manchester City, Tommy Doyle moved to northern Germany to hone his skills with Hamburg in Bundesliga 2.
bundesliga.com runs the rule over the City academy product whose loan spell with HSV looks set to be mutually beneficial…
Age: 20
Club: Hamburg
Position: Midfield
Country: England (U21/2 caps)
Key stats
Born in Manchester, England, Doyle linked up with Man City at the age of eight, having started his footballing path with Sandbach United FC from the age of four, catching the eye with a supply in excess of 80 goals a season.
The goals continued on his way through the English Premier League club's academy sides, and the accolades followed with Doyle named the Premier League Player of the Tournament for three successive years at U18 and Premier League 2 levels.
At the age of 18, he was handed his Premier League debut by former Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola, who also gave him a taste of UEFA Champions League football in the 2020/21 group stage win over Olympiacos – just a few months after he committed his long-term future to the club by signing a deal through to 2025.
Doyle was part of the England U17 team which hosted the 2018 UEFA European Under-17 Championship, although injury in the third game against Switzerland curtailed his involvement after he had scored against Israel and Italy in the first two games. He then captained England's U20s on his debut in October 2020 before earning his first cap for England's U21s in September 2021.
Doyle joined Hamburg for the 2021/22 season on a season-long loan. He has made three appearances from the bench, notching an assist on his debut and scoring his first Bundesliga 2 goal on his third outing, in a 2-1 win at Paderborn.
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Plays a bit like: Thiago Alcantara
A versatile midfielder who can fit in any position across the centre of the park, Doyle has a strong technique and magnetic close control with an outstanding vision and intelligence to play the killer ball through to a teammate or, if no such option exists, he knows where to find the goal even from long range. His style of play is unsurprisingly similar to another former Guardiola pupil, Thiago Alcantara. The Spanish midfielder was the man Guardiola wanted more than anybody when he took charge of Bayern, and for the current City manager now to give Doyle a long-term contract is an indication of where he sees him fitting into his current team, as the driving force of his future midfield.
Did you know?
Doyle's grandfathers Mike Doyle and Glyn Pardoe are two club legends. The former ranks third on their all-time appearance list with 570 outings in a sky blue shirt, while the latter, who made 380 appearances for City, is the youngest player ever to play for the club, aged 15 years and 341 days.
Watch: Tommy Doyle was Hamburg's supersub against Paderborn
What they're saying
"He's a player with a special quality. He takes it, shoots. Another Man City fan. A historic family, the historic Doyle family. The minutes he plays, he plays good." – Current Man City coach Guardiola
"Of course I'd love to see more of him on the pitch, but if he keeps going, he's bound to get a chance and I'm sure he's going to get more and more as the season progresses." - Hamburg's sporting director Jonas Boldt
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