Pep Guardiola secured his first win as Manchester City boss after beating Borussia Dortmund 6-5 on penalties in Shenzhen, China.
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Leonardo Bonucci – who featured in our top five defensive targets – had been mooted, but it now appears City manager Pep Guardiola has set his sights on England global Stones.
Denayer spent last season on loan at Galatasaray and feels the experience will hold him in good stead at City.
City’s new manager hopes the 29-year-old Nasri will have lost the excess weight in two weeks. Today we played one of the best teams in Europe by far. I have said that the beginning will be tough, so to create something new you need time.
The manager is pleased with his players’ application in general.
“I don’t want to complain but I would like to have more time”, said Guardiola. Again, he’s 17 and we’re going to keep things in perspective and not speculate.
“Sane is a player from Schalke”.
“If he comes we’ll be happy, if he stays in Schalke I will be happy for the fans and for the Schalke club”, Guardiola explained, as quoted by ESPN. Same answer for Stones.
“He is a player for Everton”. I don’t know if we are going to kill our players but the schedule is the schedule.
FC’s Gab Marcotti says Everton are holding out for Man City to meet their asking price for John Stones. He was a member of the Germany squad which reached the semi-finals at Euro 2016.
Despite a dip in form last season, Stones is highly regarded by top clubs in England and overseas.
The England worldwide was the subject of a big-money bid from Chelsea previous year, but the move failed to materialise after Everton rejected three bids from the London club.
New boss Guardiola has drawn up a list of players he is happy to move on topped by striker Wilfried Bony and midfielder Yaya Toure.
All pre-season matches are about more than the result and for City this couldn’t be more true after their clash with Manchester United was called off earlier in the week.
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Whilst hopeful that Stones will still join, Guardiola is working on a back-up plan.
