As things stand at Manchester City, Pablo Zabaleta and Bacary Sagna aren’t cutting it, and Pep Guardiola has asked the club’s hierarchy to find him a better right-back.
High on this list, according to Mundo Deportivo, happens to be veteran full-back Darijo Srna, currently contracted to Shakhtar in Ukraine, and Txiki Begiristain is being a bit of a pain in the backside of his former club Barcelona.
The Catalan newspaper report that the Croatia international has been in talks with the La Liga champions for quite some time over a potential January move, yet Manchester City, through their director of football, have enquired directly with the player how said discussions have been going on.
Mundo claim that Srna has been on Pep’s radar for quite some time now, and that the Spanish manager even tried to sign him a few times during his time as head coach of both Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Srna, down his end, has been given the green light by Shakhtar’s owner, Rinat Akhmetov, to leave the club, and with a contract ending on the 30th of June 2017, few would be able to stand in his way anyways.
The 34-year-old is currently dealing with negotiations himself, and has told his close friend and advisor Igor Stimac that he wants to join Barcelona.
It seems that Txiki’s enquiries have come that little bit too late, if they even happened in the first place.
We wouldn’t put it past the Catalan media to throw the Premier League side into the mix just to claim another victory over their former manager and director of football, after all.
