Manchester City are a couple hours away from battling for another trophy, the UEFA Super Cup, and we’ve previewed that tussle with Sevilla here and here. In the meantime though we have transfer talk to get to Today’s edition focuses on the back line, specifically on departing defenders Joao Cancelo and Aymeric Laporte, so let’s jump right in.
Cancelo may be a phenomenal left back, but he is obviously expendable now to City.
The fact that he spent the back half of last season on loan at Bayern Munich obviously speaks to that.
FC Barcelona are the front-runner to acquire him, but reports indicate they may need to sell off a couple players in the squad first, in order to sign him. However, Arsenal are now looking to hijack Barca’s initiative here. Arsenal trying to sign/signing a City player?
Stop me if you’ve heard that one before!
According to Just Arsenal, citing reports from Spanish outlet Sport, “Barcelona is aware of Arsenal’s intentions but doesn’t appear overly concerned by their efforts. Instead, Barcelona believes that Cancelo will ultimately choose to join their ranks.”
We’ll see what happens, as it could be a bit before this is settled. Moving on to Laporte, well, “hey, all the cool kids are doing it!” And by “it” I mean moving to the Saudi Pro League. And Laporte is seemingly destined for the team that is the trendiest of all in Saudi Arabia: Al-Nassr.
City have accepted a bid, for an undisclosed amount, for the 29-year-old French central defender, and that means he’ll soon be joining the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mane, Marcelo Brozovic and Alex Telles. Exactly how much Al-Nassr are paying for the left-footed centre back remains to be seen, but obviously it met City’s valuation.
And given the upgrades City have made in the position group lately, it’s best for Laporte for to move on. I’m sure he’ll get a nice payday too.
They did spend 77 million GBP, or 90m Euro on Josko Gvardiol from RB Leipzig, so that drops everyone down the depth chart.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
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