Buckle up, Manchester City fans, because we’re about to take you on a fun ride.
Opening the Italian newspapers first thing on Monday morning, we came across a big headline in Corriere dello Sport claiming that Pep Guardiola was prepared to do some crazy stuff to sign Milan Skriniar from Inter.
On paper, it’s not the most ridiculous idea in the world, as the brittle Vincent Kompany will need replacing sooner rather than later, although you would think the club might look at less expensive options.
Looking into the matter deeper, Corriere state in their article that the Mirror claimed Manchester City were prepared to put €100m on the table for the Slovakian centre-back, so over to the Mirror we went.
As suspected, the story wasn’t theirs, relaying news from Calciomercato, for which they kindly provide a link, so we took a trip back to Italy.
Landing on the English version of the website, we are now told the story originated in AS, but the link provided only takes us as far as the original article on their Italian site.
Still, this kindly explained the information came from Saturday’s edition of the aforementioned Spanish newspaper, which we apprehensively opened.
Flicking through it, it became quickly apparent that no such story existed (don’t be too shocked).
What was published, however, was an interview with one of Milan Skriniar’s representatives, who talks of Real Madrid’s interest in the player (link to the online version).
Within that interview, Mithat Halis reveals that six months after the defender signed for Inter, Manchester City made a €55m bid for his services, before explaining his client is worth around €100m these days.
That’s a far cry from “MAN CITY SET TO BEAT MAN UTD TO £85M DEFENDER”, isn’t it?
