The Daily Star this morning claim City will offer Wilfried Bony in part-exchange for John Stones.
The Everton defender has been linked with the Blues all summer and new Toffees manager Ronald Koeman allegedly is considering options for Romelu Lukaku – should the Belgian leave Goodison.
The Star report: “City are ready to offer Everton Bony in a swap deal to sign Stones, if Lukaku moves to Manchester United.
“The Sun claim Pep Guardiola wants to step up his pursuit of the England central defender after missing out on Athletic Bilbao’s Aymeric Laporte.
“City are willing to offer around £20m plus the Ivorian forward in order to secure the signing of Stones.
“And new Toffees boss Ronald Koeman could be interested in bringing Bony to Goodison Park if Lukaku does end up leaving the club for Old Trafford.”
Football Fancast suggest the Blues are also looking to strengthen the goalkeeping department in the coming weeks as the over-the-top criticism of Joe Hart continues.
They write: “Manchester City are reportedly looking to replace their current number one goalkeeper Joe Hart with Barcelona’s Claudio Bravo, according to the Daily Mail.
“Hart has endured a troublesome season in the City sticks this season, and his horrid campaign has been made worse by his performances at the Euros with England this summer, making several costly errors, most notably for Iceland’s winner in the Three Lions’ last 16 knockout stage loss.”
Troublesome season? How exactly? It’s scary how quickly people can turn but Joe still has a legion of fans at City who know better.
Meanwhile, Sport Witness believe the Blues could land defender Stephen Lichtsteiner – should the Swiss star ask to leave Juventus.
They write: “Daniel Alves to Juventus, Pablo Zabaleta to Roma and Stephan Lichtsteiner to Manchester City. In Italy this seems to be a reasonable scenario for this summer, but it’s not what the Old Lady of Turin want.
“According to Calcio Mercato, Juventus want to keep Lichtsteiner in the squad, even after the signing of Dani Alves. The club would be planning to have the Swiss international as a utility player for the team, covering absences of fullbacks and midfielders.
“Juventus expect to settle this matter soon, and it will depend much on the player’s will. If he says he wants to leave to go to Manchester City, or to the German clubs who are allegedly interested but not so strong in competition, then the board will accept to release him.”
Finally, back to Football Fancast again who are among numerous media outlets to suggest Nolito is close to becoming a City player.
“According to the Telegraph, Spanish striker Nolito is set to become Pep Guardiola’s latest signing for Manchester City.
“The Celta Vigo forward is reportedly the subject of a £13.8 million move to the Etihad as the former Bayern Munich manager begins, arguably, his toughest job to date.
“Guardiola was appointed at the club with the tasks of regaining the Premier League crown as well as establishing City in Europe – something they haven’t managed to do as yet.
“The man who swept all before him in the Bundesliga after arguably assembling one of the greatest club sides ever to grace the game at Barcelona now needs to answer any remaining critics that he may have had it easy thus far and turn City into one of the biggest clubs around.
“He’s already started to reshape the team with Ilkay Gundogan and now with Nolito coming in he’s really starting to make his mark.
“He’ll be judged on his signings of course, but we at FootballFanCast think Nolito could be the best of the bunch, here are FIVE reasons why…”
You’ll need to follow this link to find out more.
Back tomorrow with more speculation, gossip and whatever else we can unearth…
