A recent report has shared a reason why Manchester City’s transfer pursuit of Josko Gvardiol has been rather slow.
Having agreed personal terms with the RB Leipzig defender last month, the Manchester club have been in talks with the German side over recent days to try and work out a deal for the player, who Leipzig want €100m (£85m) for.
Now, some fresh behind-the-scenes information has arose, particularly on Leipzig’s side, regarding why this transfer saga has not been completed yet.
Leipzig want new players in before Gvardiol sale
Written in his Substack column for Caught Offside, journalist Christian Falk had this to say about Leipzig’s current stance and situation surrounding their potential sale of Gvardiol to City.
He said: “Leipzig’s first offer for Castello Lukeba was €26m and €6m in add-ons. That was not enough for Lyon. That’s why they have to go up. So Lyon wants €30m as a base fee. Leipzig is working on how to arrange this.
“This is also interesting for England – that’s why it’s a little bit quiet at the moment over Josko Gvardiol, because Leipzig knows at the moment that if they get a package of €100m, the other clubs will say ‘hey, you’ve got €100m, so you can spend a little bit more on the player’.”
With that in mind, it seems that the German club want to bring new players in for standard fees rather than be potentially forced to pay extra to other clubs who may way to put their prices up as a result of the money Leipzig could be getting for Gvardiol.
In our view, the longer this saga gets dragged out for, the more frustration will gather from City supporters and potentially those at the Manchester club looking to get the deal done.
Moving forward, with the treble winners set to start their pre-season schedule on Monday, it’d be safe to assume that Pep Guardiola would want the Croatian in the squad as soon as possible so he can get up to speed with the rest of the players and give himself plenty of time to get ready for the new season.
Therefore, we feel that the club should go full speed ahead and do all they can to get Leipzig to sign off on a deal regardless of what their potential issues are in the transfer market.
