Manchester City: Transfer News and Rumour Roundup 4

The Top Priority

Toni Kroos, Real Madrid, 26, Midfielder

Well it’s nice to want things, isn’t it? It’s like being asked as a kid what you want to be when you grow up and answering – rich. I guess that’s not such an outlandish answer for boyhood Pep Guardiola or kindergarten Toni Kroos though. Can’t imagine the latter answered “a Manchester City player” but we can always dream.

We discussed Kroos way back when, noting that, ultimately, he’s the first choice for Summer signings and is likely to remain so as long as we have Pep at the helm. Pep is a huge admirer of Kroos, to the point that, when Bayern pawned him off to Real Madrid against his wishes, he decided not to renew his contract after it expired.

Kroos is basically the perfect Pep player. Possession, passing, control and dominance. He is the linchpin at Madrid and would be the same for City, particularly in tandem with Gundogan. All that and more we talked about before, but not an awful lot has been said about Kroos since. A few reports suggested Pep had given up on the German and others speculated it wasn’t likely to happen. Oh and there were a few  (dozen) other trade rumours floating around for us to absorb ourselves in.

But, it seems, behind the scenes Pep still made Kroos is number one choice after all. At least, so reports the Daily Star and Daily Express. Both suggested Kroos himself was open to the idea, perhaps even in favour, and the Express slapped an arbitrary figure of £37 million on his head which is so insanely low it leads me to believe it couldn’t have been made up. Canadian football journalist Philip Harmeling backed up this figured but suggested it was a starting offer, which makes more sense but is still either silly, insulting or both.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, there needs to be a good reason for Real to part ways with Kroos and it’s likely only if they seriously need a large amount of transfer cash. We speculated last time that this could go towards a run for Paul Pogba, a player who could justifiably see north of £65 million, unlike Aubameyang. There doesn’t seem to be much interest from Madrid for such a move, let alone at the behest of Kroos, but you never know.

If, and that’s a big if, City are throwing their eggs in one basket though, this seems to be the man for it. He’s Pep’s top priority and thus he’s Manchester City’s, but there’s so many variables and factors that remain unclear, let alone the seriously sketchy nature of sources like the Star, that make me apprehensive. I want to be excited, but it’s a tall order and would represent perhaps the largest Premier League summer signing coup in a long time.

For now, keep dreaming.