On Sunday Jutarnji List reported Ivan Rakitic was on the verge of a move to Manchester City. They said a source with ‘perfect insight into the transfers of big European clubs’ had told them so.
For such a big claim, it didn’t really have a lot of details, and Jutarnji made it more general piece about interest in Croatian players in the January market.
In an article on Monday morning, they cover Rakitic’s future, without mentioning Manchester City once.
In a second Monday morning article they cover Luis Enrique rubbishing the claims and blaming the media, and say the manager has revealed the ‘truth’.
Explaining what prompted the need for a Barcelona denial, Jutarnji say: ‘the world’s media wrote about a possible transfer of Ivan Rakitic to Manchester City’
The world’s media wrote about because Jutarnji claimed they had a huge exclusive that Rakitic was on the verge of joining Pep Guardiola’s side. They seem to be edging away from that claim, and despite publishing several articles on Rakitic’s future since, haven’t bigged up their big exclusive again.
Premier League interest in Rakitic would be no surprise, and there’s often been rumours of interest. Barcelona signing Andre Gomes in the summer was seen as a threat to Rakitic and that led to whispers from Croatia saying the midfielder could be leaving.
Manchester City interest would make some sense, but these claims appear to have been over inflated.
