Journalist Toby Cudworth has claimed that Manchester City expect to secure a transfer deal for Josko Gvardiol this summer.
Earlier this week, Fabrizio Romano reported that the Manchester are preparing to make an official bid for the RB Leipzig centre-back after having verbal approaches of €75m (£64m) plus add-ons turned down by the German side, who want €100m (86m) to sell the player.
With that in mind, one journalist has come out and shared some details regarding how City currently feel about getting this deal done.
Journalist anticipates City to seal Gvardiol deal
Speaking in a recent episode of the Talking Transfers podcast, Cudworth had this to say about Gvardiol.
He said: “The Premier League title is all but decided if Manchester City get Josko Gvardiol from RB Leipzig.
“We fully anticipate that they will, the player has finalised personal terms, talks are progressing between the two clubs, but slowly, I think is how we should phrase it at this stage.
“City still confident they’re going to get him, Leipzig publicly declared that it would take €100m plus add-ons to get Gvardiol away from Leipzig, that’s something we anticipate City will be prepared to do, it would just be the structure of the deal and when they’re going to be paying certain amounts of money and by what dates.
“Gvardiol, previously targeted by Chelsea, we thought he was going to be going to Stamford Bridge at one point before he signed a new deal in Germany, and by all accounts, he’s going to be one of the best central defenders in the world football in a few years time.
“He’s already one of the best in Europe and he’s 21 I believe so his ceiling is sky high, and I think it’s a big warning sign for the Premier League that City have won the treble and they’ve now brought Mateo Kovacic in, they’re going to being in another top class centre-back, they’re just going from strength to strength even though they’ve lost Ilkay Gundogan and could lose one of two others before the windows out.”
During his time at Leipzig, the Croatian has made 87 appearances across all competitions, chipping in with five goals, one of which came against Pep Guardiola’s side earlier this season in the Champions League.
Last season saw the 21-year-old feature in 30 of Leipzig’s 34 Bundesliga games, across which he racked up the second-highest total of clearances made (76) in the squad, highlighting how much of a capable defender he is.
Having featured in both Champions League knockout matches last season against City, this will have given Guardiola a good chance of seeing Gvardiol in action and seeing how he fares against the Manchester club’s attacking players.
With Cudworth saying that he expects the European champions to wrap this deal up and go on to be successful with him in the team, this will give the club the chance to use the remainder of the summer transfer window to strengthen their squad wherever they deem necessary.
