For a while Manchester City have been present at regular games in Portugal, and it hasn’t been different at the start of this season.
On Wednesday, they went for a Champions League match this time, as Porto played Besiktas in the first fixture of the group stage.
The Manchester City officials had the chance to watch quite a surprising result, as the Turkish side managed a 3-1 win, making an important step to qualification for the knock-out stage.
Besitkas’ attacking system worked pretty well, with Anderson Talisca, Cenk Tosun and the former Liverpool player Ryan Babel all scoring for the Turkish side. Oliver Torres and Yacine Brahimi were two Porto players singled out for praise.
The Manchester City scouts weren’t the only English club officials in the stands, as Manchester United, Tottenham, Arsenal and Watford all had emissaries at the game as well.
Bad night for target
In the last days of the transfer window, Manchester City were linked to the Porto midfielder Danilo Pereira. The player has been in good form for a while, and is said to be wanted by several European sides.
The report claimed City would only like to sign him in the next summer window, so it would make a lot of sense to scout him now. Manchester City were reported to be planning a ‘diplomatic approach’, similar to how they’ve worked with Porto in the past – the long game.
Danilo is much loved at Porto, and there’s no way the club would let him leave for much less than his release clause, which is €60m. That’s probably why PSG couldn’t get him in the last transfer window, as they were heavily linked as well.
But it turned out that the midfielder had quite a poor performance last night, with local newspaper O Jogo calling him ‘strangely apathetic’, and ‘lost in a zone of the pitch where he normally controls’.
So in case the Manchester City officials were there to watch Danilo especially, it just wasn’t the right night to do so. A bump in the long transfer road.
