Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has ruled out any chance of his side agreeing a world-record deal with Paris Saint-Germain for Kylian Mbappe. Report suggested the Sky Blues were willing to break the transfer record to bring the French international to the Etihad Stadium, but Guardiola has denied such suggestions, saying: “That is not going to happen. Sometimes I don’t understand where the news comes from.
“Manchester City don’t have, and are not going to spend, the money that maybe Mbappe deserves, or PSG deserves. PSG is not going to sell this kind of player to any other club in the world for the next years, I guess. So that is not going to happen. Mbappe is not going to come here and we are not going to swap Raheem (Sterling) or another top player that we have.”
Guardiola makes a good point. Why would Paris Saint-Germain let Mbappe leave the club, regardless of how much money it would make them? The 19-year-old only joined from AS Monaco in August 2017 and has been nothing other than a terrific servant thus far. He scored and created 20 goals in 27 Ligue 1 games in his debut campaign and helped France win the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Mbappe has started the new season strongly too, contributing seven goals in four league games, with PSG currently top of the table with a maximum 24 points from eight outings. Guardiola can argue that Man City have a strong attack with Sergio Aguero, Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus, but there’s no doubt the French right-winger would improve their frontline.
Signing him is another matter, however, and would require the player to want to leave the defending champions, in addition to PSG accepting a bid. Given they were willing to spend £200m to procure Neymar’s signature from Barcelona in 2017, how much would it take to sign the best young player in Europe and second-most expensive signing (£165m in 2017)?
Stats from Transfermarkt.
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