Manchester City are reportedly in talks with a couple of clubs from Saudi Arabia as they seek to offload a player who is not in Pep Guardiola’s plans.
City have had a fairly slow start to the summer on the transfers front, but things should pick up in July.
Winger Savio is expected to be announced as the club’s first new signing soon, with the agreement having been reached for the Brazilian earlier this year.
But there has been a lot of talk so far this summer about players leaving City – and one man expected to depart on some kind of basis is Joao Cancelo.
The Portugal international, who is currently at Euro 2024, is wanted back by Barcelona, but they can’t afford to buy him at the moment.
That creates an issue for City, because Barca are the player’s preference.
But now, it has been claimed that City are speaking to two Saudi clubs about Cancelo.
Manchester City’confident’ a Saudi club can tempt Joao Cancelo
For a while now, Cancelo has been linked with Barcelona and there has been very little speculation regarding other clubs.
City are understood to not want to loan Cancelo out again – they want to sell.
Cancelo – who cost City £60 million – reportedly fell out with Pep Guardiola over game time midway through the 2022/23 season, and the fallout is seemingly irreconcilable.
City want him off the books, but interest has not been particularly high.
But according to SPORT the club have now held talks with two Saudi clubs, as they seek to find a buyer for the 30-year-old. The Saudi Pro League is once again keen to attract top stars this summer to help grow their profile.
City are said to be ‘confident’ that one of these clubs can ‘seduce’ Cancelo with a huge contract offer, and turn his head away from Barcelona, who can’t afford to buy him permanently.
It is going to be difficult though, because Cancelo enjoyed his time at Barca last season and president Joan Laporta and sporting director Deco have both constantly stated they want to re-sign him.
Cancelo saga could rumble on
So City are seemingly not looking to entertain Barcelona trying to loan Cancelo again, and are instead trying to use the Saudi Pro League as a solution to their problem.
It is just all dependent on whether Cancelo is willing to make that move. At the moment, he still sounds very set on returning to Spain.
Of course, the likes of Aymeric Laporte and Riyad Mahrez headed to the SPL last summer so City do have previous. And both of those players could very easily have remained in Europe and continued to play at a higher level.
So perhaps that is a reason to think Cancelo might wind up in Saudi Arabia.
That said, Cancelo, Laporta and Deco have all been vocal about the player returning, so this really could rumble on all summer.