Marc Cucurella has submitted a transfer request in a bid to force a move from Brighton to Manchester City.
The Spanish left-back is determined to join the Premier League champions before the window closes, having seen their £30million bid for him rejected by Brighton.
The south coast club want £50m for Cucurella, who has made a huge impact since joining Getafe for £15.4m last year. The 24-year-old was named Brighton’s player of the season and has been a target for Pep Guardiola for much of the summer. City’s decision to submit an offer well below the asking price looks like a classic case of a club trying to bluff a player to seal a transfer and it appears to have worked, with Cucurella handing in his transfer request having returned to make it clear to the Brighton staff that he wants to leave the Etihad Stadium for life.
Asked about Cucurella in his pre-Community Shield press conference on Friday, Guardiola said: “He’s a Brighton player, I can’t say anything else.” The City manager did admit, however, that left-back is an area he is looking to strengthen following the departure of Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal. João Cancelo is City’s only current senior specialist option in this position. “If possible, yes [to strengthen at left-back]”, said Guardiola. “If it is not, we stay with what we have.”
Brighton remain determined to keep Cucurella and are in a strong position to do so with four years remaining on his contract. Graham Potter will also hate to lose a major first-team player ahead of the new season, having already seen another in Yves Bissouma join Tottenham this summer.