Manchester City journalist Sam Lee has said that the club have a particular advantage in terms of being able to potentially secure a transfer deal for Matheus Nunes.
After it was reported that the Manchester club were interested in signing the Wolves midfielder, it has since been revealed that the Citizens have had a £47m bid rejected by the Old Gold, but are expected to intensify their interest.
Now though, one journalist has highlighted a specific aspect of this transfer saga that could help City in terms of signing the player.
Lee shares City leverage in Nunes transfer chase
Speaking on a recent edition of the Let Me Talk podcast, Lee had this to say about one particular advantage City have in terms of potentially being able to land a deal for Nunes.
He said: “If you’re looking at leverage at the moment, Wolves have got financial issues.
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“That’s why [Julen] Lopetegui went before the season started because he was told he could only sign free agents or whatever and then they were like, ‘you can’t sign free agents, there’s just no money at all.’
“So City can go and say ‘well, we know you don’t want to sell him,’ and there’s obviously been some reports around on Wednesday afternoon about Wolves don’t want to sell him, but City do have leverage there.”
With Wolves’ financial issues in mind, it’s easy to see why they would want to pick up as much money as they can for Nunes but maybe wouldn’t want to risk seeing City walk away from a potential deal if they ask for money than the Manchester club feel the midfielder is worth.
In footballing terms, the fact that the 24-year-old featured in 34 of Wolves’ 38 Premier League games last season, after arriving at Molineux from Sporting CP last summer in a club record deal worth £38m, suggests that Gary O’Neil would not want to lose Nunes.
Moving forward, taking into account what Lee said, it’ll be interesting to see if City make another bid to sign the Wolves star and if the Old Gold end up accepting a fee that could help them with their financial issues.