Pep Guardiola double cross Man Utd set to bring Frenkie de Jong to Man City

Pep Guardiola double cross Man Utd set to bring Frenkie de Jong to Man City

Pep Guardiola wants to bring Frenkie de Jong to Man City

Manchester City are reportedly trying to sign long-term Manchester United target Frenkie de Jong by offering Barcelona one of their players in a swap deal.

Pep Guardiola has a good relationship with his former club and several players have transferred between the two clubs since he made the move to the Etihad.

The likes of Joao Cancelo, Sergio Aguero, Ferran Torres and Ilkay Gundogan have left the Cityzens for Barcelona in recent years.

As reported by TEAMtalk, the Catalans are big admirers of Bernardo Silva and have been looking at ways to bring him to the Camp Nou.

The Portuguese international remains a key player for Man City but it has been suggested that he is ready to take on a new challenge elsewhere.

Silva, 29, has a release clause of £50m in his contract and Paris Saint-Germain are also interested in signing him this summer.

Due to Barcelona’s ongoing financial problems that fee may be out of reach for them so they could be tempted if Man City offer him as part of a swap deal.

Man City ‘offer’ Bernardo Silva in Barcelona swap deal
According to reports from Spain, as noted by our friends at Football365, Man City have made an ‘offer’ of Silva plus cash for Barca midfielder De Jong.

Guardiola is said to be ‘very interested’ in De Jong with Man City the ‘latest’ in a long line of suitors, including Man Utd, Liverpool, Bayern Munich and PSG.

Erik ten Hag made the 27-year-old one of his top targets when he joined the Red Devils but was ultimately unable to get a deal over the line.

The Man City manager wants a ‘luxury partner’ for Rodri in midfield. Barcelona no longer take ‘a dim view of selling De Jong, if it serves to bring in several reinforcements’.

Barca are still demanding €90m (approx. £76.6m) for the Dutchman, however, which is described as a ‘prohibitive figure’ for most of his suitors.

Man City are ‘ready’ to offer €30m (approx. £25,5m) as well as Silva for De Jong – which effectively amounts to an £75.5m offer if you take his £50m release clause into account.

It will be interesting to see how this story develops in the coming weeks as we know there’s a chance that Silva could depart the Etihad.

He has won 16 major trophies during his time at Man City and Guardiola is well aware how much of a loss he could be.

“We were afraid of losing Bernardo Silva [last] summer! He is irreplaceable,” the manager said in an interview.