How Man City are ‘beating’ Man United for signing – And ‘truth’ about Manchester meeting

For quite some time, when it came to Bruno Fernandes stories in Portugal, Manchester United were the English club most mentioned.

They scout almost every Sporting match so there’s no way the goalscoring midfielder could have missed their transfer attention. There was talk of contacts being made, and the Old Trafford club looking to get ahead of the competition.

That’s changed over the past week or so, with Manchester City now leading the race, at least in the Portuguese media.

Friday’s edition of Record says Pep Guardiola’s club is ‘beating’ both Manchester United and PSG in the chase for Bruno.

Record give their own version of the ‘truth’, and it goes like this:

Manchester City are the only club to have initiated transfer talks with Sporting. These are initial talks over the price of a deal and the conditions attached to it, but Record makes sure to say this doesn’t ‘lessen the significance’.

The player has a €100m buyout clause and whilst Sporting don’t want to sell, if someone gets close to that figure then Bruno is gone. It’s not mentioned, but from our experience it’s likely the club would accept a base fee with fancy bonuses making the deal look  worth more than it is.

Record deny earlier Portuguese claims that Sporting director Hugo Viana is to travel to Manchester City for talks. They say any transfer meetings will be in Portugal at Sporting’s Avalade base.

Manchester United are slipping behind due to inaction. That’s either because they’re not so serious about signing the player, or being somewhat hesitant to actually do anything about their intentions.