Man City boss dismisses reported interest in Miralem Pjanic
Tuesday 24 July 2018 21:20, UK
Pep Guardiola wants to add to his Manchester City squad but insists he will not bring a player to the Etihad Stadium just for the sake of it.
After four failed bids in January, City finally completed the £60m signing of Riyad Mahrez from Leicester this summer, in a deal which saw him become the most expensive signing in the club's history.
But Guardiola has endured plenty of frustration in his pursuit of a deep-lying midfielder, losing out to Manchester United and Chelsea for the signatures of Fred and Jorginho respectively, and the City boss says he will make a decision on whether to add to his squad before next month's deadline.
Miralem Pjanic is the latest player in that position linked to a move to the Etihad Stadium but Guardiola categorically dismissed a move for the Juventus playmaker.
"No, Pjanic is a player of Juventus in Turin," Guardiola said when asked directly about his reported interest in the Bosnia international.
"We are not interested in Pjanic. Saying that, he is a top player but we are not interested.
"We'll see, we still have a few weeks to decide [if we want to bring players in].
"Maybe one will come, maybe not, we'll see, but at the moment we have a good enough squad. We can handle players in different positions and we'll see in the last days - we'll decide to buy one player or wait till next season.
"The scouting department are always looking for players in all positions. In the holding midfield position we don't have less players because Fernandinho is still there one more year, [Ilkay] Gundogan can play there, Fabian Delph can play there. Oleksander Zinchenko, if he stays, can play there, we have players can play that position."
Manchester City play Liverpool in an International Champions Cup tie on Wednesday, with both sides looking for a first win on their US tour after both suffered defeats by German side Borussia Dortmund.
Liverpool are the bookmakers' favourites to push City for the Premier League title but Guardiola is refusing to rule out a title challenge from elsewhere.
He added: "The contenders to win the title? We are one of them and there are many.
"Always, Liverpool is a contender. With the beautiful history they have they will always be a contender to win the Premier League."
