Manchester City reveal damning stance on two reported midfield transfer targets ahead of January window | OneFootball

Premier League champions Manchester City have firmly shutdown the suggestion that two of Europe’s best midfielders are transfer targets for January.

The Etihad Stadium club have been widely linked with various transfer targets for the next transfer window, as club officials look to ensure that they remain competitive in the second-half of the season and bring an end to a torrid run of form.

Pep Guardiola and his players have recorded just one win in their last 11 matches across competitions via a 3-0 home win over Nottingham Forest, losing eight times in that run including against Tottenham and Manchester United.

Much of the blame has been put down to injury and fitness problems hampering Guardiola’s squad, but others are pointing towards a poor recruitment strategy adopted in recent markets that have allowed the squad to deteriorate in quality.

And with the transfer window reopening for the winter in the coming weeks, some believed that it would be the perfect opportunity for Manchester City to invest, with two of Europe’s very best midfield operators linked with the club.

According to the information of The Athletic’s Sam Lee, Manchester City sources are now indicating that neither Newcastle United’s Bruno Guimaraes or Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi are transfer targets for the upcoming January window.

Manchester City are often hesitant to operate and invest in the January transfer window, having only once invested significantly during that market in the Pep Guardiola era when Aymeric Laporte arrived from Athletic Bilbao in 2018.

That is a feeling that was once again brought across by the City boss during his most-recent press conference, as he told the media on the subject of a new player/s being brought into the club next month, “It’s not easy to do that.

“With the teams don’t sell, they have to be players that maybe don’t play, or the ones they don’t want to sell they are so expensive, so it depends on the market, it depends on situations, we will see.”

It remains to be seen whether Manchester City are merely rejecting the idea of signing two highly-valuable commodities during the window, and whether the club could yet turn to lower-cost alternatives in central midfield or elsewhere in the squad.