Pep Guardiola is starting to get worried. Despite spending £150m on new players in the summer, recent events have suggested he still doesn’t have a functioning defence.
The Sun reports that theManchester City manager is “scouring the globe” for new full-backs and centre-backs to buy in January, preferably ones that don’t like tackling.
It’s tricky. English defenders tend to enjoy tackling, except John Stones but Pep already bought him. It’s also tricky because none of the players Pep likes will be available until the summer, but he can’t wait that long.
Leonardo Bonucci, Aymeric Laporte and Danny Rose are all said to be on Guardiola’s wish list, as long as they rein in the tackling a bit, but there is not a cat in Swindon’s chance he’ll be able to snare them in January.
Therefore, the Sun suggests he will target Southampton duo Virgil van Dijk and Jose Fonteinstead, just like all the other managers in the Premier League are planning to do.
Guardiola may have missed a trick when he failed attend last night’s Lisbon derby betweenBenfica and Sporting Lisbon, because everyone else was there.
The Mirror reports that Arsenal, Manchester United, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Juventus,Everton and Southampton were among 25 teams represented by scouts at the fixture. There was even a guy from Sheffield Wednesday there, for Pete’s sake.
Tackling and non-tackling defenders were among the players apparently being scouted, such as Benfica trio Victor Lindelof, Nelson Semedo and Alex Grimaldo.
Obviously the scouts were watching Sporting’s William Carvalho too, but he has been scouted in virtually every game for the past three years and still no one has bought him.
Stoke manager Mark Hughes wants to make the loan signing of Bruno Martins Indi permanent in January because he says the Dutch defender is a “great guy”, says the Mirror. What a heart-warming Christmassy story.
Meanwhile, West Ham left-back Aaron Cresswell has fuelled speculation that he is interested in a rumoured move to Liverpool after being photographed touching the This is Anfield sign when the Hammers played the Reds on Sunday (Metro). Sounds like pretty conclusive evidence.
Elsewhere, Arsenal and Liverpool are battling to sign £20m-rated Celtic striker Moussa Dembele (Star), alleged Gunners target Riechedly Bazoer is in the “final phase” of completing a January move away from Ajax, but we don’t know where to (Mirror) and Jose Mourinho is reported to have “seriously p***** off” Man Utd’s playing squad by scheduling a 4.30pm training session on Christmas Day (Sun). Yeah and get this, the Portuguese taskmaster even wants his players to play an entire match on Boxing Day! Horrible, isn’t he?
By Kevin Darling.
Culled from Yahoo News.
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