DONE DEAL: MANCHESTER CITY TO FINALISED TALKS WITH £35M ACE, AND THE PLAYER WILL ARRIVE AT THE EITHAD BY SUMMER.
Premier League champions Manchester City are ready to open contract talks with Ederson as Pep Guardiola’s side look to tie down the Brazil international goalkeeper at the Etihad Stadium.
The long-serving shot-stopper still has two years remaining on his current deal. But, with his importance to the City cause as strong as ever, the reigning champions are unwilling to risk letting his contract run down.
HITC Football understands that Manchester City are now ready to hold discussions over an extension. They hope terms can be agreed before the 2024/25 season kicks off in August too.
Ederson became the world’s second-most expensive goalkeeper when he moved to England from Benfica for a cool £35 million back in 2017. That big-money investment has been repaid with interest over the last seven years, Ederson making over 300 appearances and winning pretty much everything there is to win in the European game.
Manchester City plan a new contract for Ederson
He was a huge part of last season’s treble-winning City side, starting in the Champions League final triumph over Inter Milan.
Finding a replacement of his quality and skill-set would be easier said than done, too, with Ederson’s famed distribution making the long-serving South American absolutely integral to Guardiola’s possession-heavy gameplan.
“With his feet, he is the best,” Guardiola once said. “The quality of the pass, I would say, is the best. Manuel (Neuer) and Victor (Valdes) were incredible too, but (Ederson’s) quality of the pass is the best.”
Oscar Bobb rewarded with fresh terms
HITC have also been told that Man City are set to confirm a new deal for rising star Oscar Bobb too. The teenager has been one of this term’s breakout talents – scoring a wonderful stoppage time winner against Newcastle United just after Christmas – and Guardiola has now green-lit the decision to offer Bobb a well-deserved extension.
“He’s a guy who receives the ball as a striker in the pockets and his first turn… He is quite similar to Phil (Foden),” Guardiola says of the Norway international, the latest player to make the step up from City’s academy to the first-team.
“He is an incredible threat. It’s another player from the Academy, and it’s good.”
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SOURCES: CRYSTAL PALACE AND WOLVES EYE £16M ENGLISHMAN AMID OLISE AND NETO CONCERNS
- EXCLUSIVE from Graeme Bailey
Juventus will look to sell Samuel Iling-Junior this summer and harbour hope that the England under-21 international can be used as a makeweight in a deal to bring in Michael Olise or Pedro Neto from Premier League duo Crystal Palace or Wolves.
HITC Football understands that, after struggling to force his way into Massimiliano Allegri’s first-choice XI this season, the Serie A giants will cash in on their former Chelsea whizzkid.
Samuel Iling-Junior has spent four years in Turin, and has made over 30 first-team appearances across the last 18 months or so. But with a host of clubs looking to take the London-born winger back to England, Juve may seize the opportunity to make a sizeable profit.
Some reports indicate that Iling-Junior will be allowed to leave for around £16 million.
Samuel Iling-Junior could return to the Premier League
HITC have been informed that there is interest from Crystal Palace and rivals Brighton and Hove Albion. West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers are also watching his situation very closely.
Juventus would love to include Iling-Junior as a makeweight in a deal that would see Olise or Neto – two of the Premier League’s most gifted and most coveted widemen – move in the other direction. But there is an acceptance behind the scenes at the Italian giants that Olise and Neto are more likely to join one of England’s big-hitters instead.
Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal are among those keen, and capable of making offers for Juve cannot match.
Iling-Junior, meanwhile, has one goal and two assists to his name this season. Opportunities have been few and far between, however, with Filip Kostic and Andrea Cambiaso ahead of him the left-footed left-winger in Allegri’s pecking order.
Palace could lose Michael Olise
Iling-Junior, should he join Crystal Palace, would be the latest highly-rated young Englishman to pass through Selhurst Park. The one-time Chelsea starlet is not likely to be a direct replacement for Olise, however. He prefers to tread the touchline on the left rather than cut in from the right.
Matias Soule, another Juve starlet linked with Palace, may be a more fitting successor. HITC understands that Soule, so impressive on loan at Frosinone, has now set his sights higher than the club who last week hired Oliver Glasner as Roy Hodgson’s replacement.
According to The Guardian, there was interest from Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich before Iling-Junior chose Juve back in 2020.
“He’s got the technique of a street player but also the physicality to match. It’s the perfect combination of the two,” explains Saul Isaksson-Hurst, Iling-Junior’s long-time trainer. “And he’s a very intelligent player as well.
“Samuel is unique because he is so technical and can use both feet, so he could probably play anywhere. He’s got everything.”
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