For the past few years, we’ve been covering sporadic stories from the Brazilian media saying Manchester City were interested in the Grêmio forward Everton.
The reason we never really bought the rumour is that despite showing good potential, the 23-year-old never seemed to be a player for Pep Guardiola to follow so fiercely.
Now outlet Zero Hora comes up with an article saying the Catalan manager has received an ‘order’ from Manchester City which will leave the club out of the race for Everton.
According to their ‘exclusive story’, the Premier League champions are not spending big this summer, and should only go for a couple of players in the next transfer window.
There are two main reasons for that. First, Manchester City have spent too much in the past few years, and now they think the squad is good enough to fight for all titles, and it isn’t necessary to pile up more players. Second, there’s the fear about the Financial Fair Play due to UEFA’s investigations on the club.
That’s why Pep Guardiola was told by the owners that he’s not having much money to spend in the summer. City’s priorities would be a central defender and a defensive midfielder.
So the information that Zero Hora got from agents who have ‘movement in English football’ is that Everton isn’t even being talked about at the Premier League side.
That’s a blow for Grêmio, who knew that Manchester City were one of the few who could pay the €40m they are demanding.
