Pep Guardiola’s chase for Alex Grimaldo is the biggest transfer story in Portugal this week.
The local media have reported that the Manchester City boss traveled to watch the fullback on Monday (which we found out was not true) and the approach for the player is being awaited by Benfica.
Record has an article today saying that despite Guardiola’s interest, the Portuguese club are not keen to sell him so soon. Their desire would be to see him develop in Lisbon, which means that a departure in January is highly unlikely.
Benfica are in a very good position to choose if the player is leaving or not. They signed him from Barcelona this year for €1.5m and gave him a contract with a €60m release clause.
Record claims that back in November, when Grimaldo was still at Barcelona, Guardiola’s Bayern Munich and Arsenal were keeping an eye on him, but Benfica ended up winning the race at the time.
The newspaper doesn’t have any information on contact from Manchester City. They don’t mention Guardiola’s trip (or his non-trip, giving that it didn’t happen) this time, but insist on saying that the Catalan boss wants to bring the fullback to the Premier League.
So That’s Manchester City, Arsenal and Bayern Munich linked today, following on from Manchester United yesterday. Whoever is pushing this perhaps needs to be aware of overkill.
