Manchester City are ‘optimistic’ about a deal for Lionel Messi and could include Gabriel Jesus, Bernardo Silva and Eric Garcia to get him.
In case you’ve been living under a rock and missed the biggest news in football this week, Messi has told Barcelona he wants to leave this summer and is pushing to make that happen.
Manchester City have been put right at the front of the queue for his signature, with it felt they are one in a small handful of clubs who could potentially afford him.
There have been various updates and reports on how this may happen, particularly as City have to be careful with Financial Fair Play.
Any deal to sign Messi would obviously be a costly one and Sport explain how they could get around it.
The newspaper states Barcelona obviously don’t want to lose Messi and have made it clear that a club would have to match his €700m release clause if he were to leave.
Messi, though, wants out and has phoned Pep Guardiola to tell him he wants to join Manchester City this summer. Guardiola, in turn, has told him if that is the case, then City ‘will do everything possible’ to sign him.
Thus those in charge at the Etihad are ‘preparing a proposal’ that would not violate FFP and so are ‘in favour’ of not spending more than €100m if Barça eventually agree to a sale.
They are, though, willing to throw in three players to bump up the overall value of the deal and the ones they ‘contemplate’ using are Gabriel Jesus, Bernardo Silva and Eric Garcia.
Of those three, Barcelona aren’t particularly keen on Jesus, but they do like Silva and Garcia, particularly the latter, who they were already targeting this summer and have ‘closed an agreement with’.
That would suggest Manchester City may need to change their approach somewhat, although Sport state that they are ‘optimistic’ about a deal.
