Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez has confirmed that the club tried to bring in Manchester City defender Joao Cancelo, but that Pep Guardiola’s side ruled out any chance of deal.
Cancelo ended up on loan at Bayern Munich in the second half of the season, and have a €70m buy option. While Cancelo is not expected to return to City this summer, neither are Bayern expected to pay that clause.
Xavi explained that they had given the go ahead of a loan deal, but that ultimately City did not want to loan him to the Blaugrana.
“We wanted Cancelo in January. They offered him to us and we accepted it. In the end they told us that Manchester City did not want to loan him to Barca,” he told Esport3 (via MD).
Equally they go on to say that Cancelo himself was not keen on a move to the Blaugrana.
With Barcelona still on the hunt for a right-back this summer, a loan move for Cancelo has been mentioned as a low-cost option. Whether anything in City’s mindset or Cancelo’s has changed is not certain, but it does not bode well for Barcelona’s chances of signing him. Xavi is in desperate need of a right-back for next season, with Jules Kounde not thrilled with being used there for much of this campaign.
Well according to the Spanish media Barcelona are making unrealistic demands and the pro Barca media believe Barca can push Manchester City around in to doing whatever they want. City won’t be pushed around in to getting what you want. Manchester want Cancelo gone permanently so there will be no loan, you will sign him outright or he will go to another club, just because his contract runs until 2027, that doesn’t mean the balls in your court. Manchester have no pressure to sell, he will just come back and sit of our bench if he’s lucky. He doesn’t want that hence why he went to Bayern. If Pavard leaves Bayern then they will all of a sudden need Cancelo, anything can happen but, it won’t be another loan anywhere and their will be other offers.
You think you can just demand players from us at an under value price and you expect us to give in to you. That’s not how it works, you pay market value or they go elsewhere.