pretty significant one
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Manchester City offer Yaya Touré to try to land Juventus’s Paul Pogba • Touré, Nasri, Jovetic, Kolarov and Dzeko available as makeweights
• City visit Turin for talks over Pogba, who is valued by Juve at £71m
• Guardiola says he will stay as Bayern Munich manager next season
Manchester City face competition from clubs including Real Madrid and Barcelona for the midfielder Paul Pogba. Photograph: Massimo Pinca/AP Jamie Jackson
@JamieJackson___Monday 11 May 2015 17.04 BST Last modified on Tuesday 12 May 2015 00.01 BST
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Manchester City’s determination to prise Paul Pogba from Juventus has led to Yaya Touré being offered as a makeweight in a deal for the Frenchman, who is valued at €100m (£71.5m) by the Italian champions. City have visited Turin to hold talks over a potential transfer for the 22-year-old.
They face competition from Real Madrid, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United, who signed the midfielder from Le Havre in July 2009 before allowing him to depart on a free to Juve three summers later.
City have offered not only Touré, whose relationship with the club is troubled, but Samir Nasri, Stevan Jovetic, Aleksandar Kolarov and Edin Dzeko to Juventus should the Serie A club wish to include one or more in any deal for Pogba. City are the only club to have gone to Turin to firm up their interest in buying a player who would be the ideal replacement for Touré and would be expected to be the mainstay of the midfield for the foreseeable future.
Juve are reluctant to sell but will listen to offers in the region of €100m, though their preference would be a straight cash deal and it remains to be seen if they would accept a player in part-exchange.
Pogba’s first choice is to play for Real Madrid or Barcelona, with City then favourites ahead of PSG. Real’s interest has caused Zinedine Zidane, coach of their Castilla ‘B’ team, to make contact with the player’s camp by telephone to begin a dialogue. At the end of March Zidane told Canal+: “When we are talking about a player like Pogba, it is only logical Real Madrid are interested in signing him. He is a player with immense potential, who still has an important margin for improvement. He is still young and has an exciting future ahead of him. Where Pogba will play next season? I don’t know the answer to that question. You will have to ask him.”
Although Barcelona have a transfer ban for 2015 imposed by Fifa, they may be able sign Pogba and loan him back to Juve before registering him next year.
City’s sporting director, Txiki Begiristain, and chief executive, Ferran Soriano, are willing to offer Pogba around £250,000 a week, a figure in the region of that earned by Touré, the club’s highest-paid player. Despite Juventus being in the Champions League semi-finals the executive hope to sell Pogba a vision of City as an ongoing domestic force whose progress has enabled them to reach the last 16 of that competition for the past two seasons, with the Frenchman viewed as the driving force to take them to the next level.
City hope that Pogba can be joined by Wolfsburg’s Kevin De Bruyne, who at 23 would be part of a fresh dynamic team. Patrick De Koster, De Bruyne’s agent, confirmed City’s interest. “I have a meeting with Klaus Allofs [Wolfsburg’s sporting director] next week to find out what they want to do,” he told TalkSport. “I will know if they want to offer Kevin a new deal or allow him to move. Manchester City, Bayern Munich and PSG have made informal contact with me, but there have been no official offers.
“The situation has now changed with Wolfsburg qualifying for the Champions League next season, so wherever he plays next season it will be in the Champions League. If Wolfsburg decide to sell Kevin, then he will have a choice of clubs who can win their domestic league and challenge for the Champions League as well. The choice is his.”
Although Touré has been offered as a makeweight for Pogba there is no guarantee the Ivorian will leave the club this summer, though with his agent, Dimitry Seluk, claiming it is “90%” certain he will do so, City are considering their options.
Dzeko, Nasri, Jovetic, and Kolarov are viewed as others who could leave, each of them having disappointing seasons for the club in a Premier League title defence that fell away since 1 January when City were joint-leaders alongside Chelsea, who sealed the title last week.