Manchester City are staring the barrel of a rejection for another major summer signing.
Manager Pep Guardiola wants to rebuild his Man City squad this summer with several of the club's biggest stars either over 30 (such as Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Ederson) or having had a poor season (such as Jack Grealish, Phil Foden and Jeremy Doku).
With the Club World Cup starting next month, the rumour mill is starting to ramp up with City looking for world-class additions across the field – but it appears two major targets have already slipped through the net.
Manchester City were in talks for a superstar who now looks like rejecting them
With the Mail reporting that City pulled out of an £126 million move for Florian Wirtz over “soaring costs”, there has been talk of Wirtz rejecting the project that City put to him.
But it's actually another player who looks as if he could turn Guardiola down, as he targets fresh impetus in midfield.
Italian outlet Gazzetta dello Sport reports that there is “no talk” of Tijjani Reijnders moving to City to replace Ilkay Gundogan, despite the Dutch midfielder being an almost perfect, like-for-like heir as a box-crashing no.8.
As per Sport Witness, Sunday’s edition of Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport claimed that Milan were open to discussions of selling Reijnders for a fee of €70m – but these latest Gazzetta claims say that Reijnders is “in love” with the Serie A giants.
With the Rossoneri set to miss out on Champions League football for next season, it has been assumed that Reijnders would be for sale as one of the club's biggest assets – and that the player himself would be open to the possibility of furthering his career elsewhere.
While that may still be true, FourFourTwo understands that the feeling among the Milan faithful complicates the board's willingness to sell the star, with a fear that the club could suffer protests and even season ticket holders failing to renew, should Reijnders be shipped out of the club.
City have moved onto other targets from Wirtz but with Reijnders the major ‘complete central midfielder’ that the club were looking at to replace Gundogan and Bernardo Silva, a deal may not be as straightforward as previously expected.
Reijnders is worth €50m, according to Transfermarkt.
