Pep Guardiola dismisses move for Juventus’s ‘top player’

Matt Stead

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has declared the club are not interested in signing Juventus midfielder Miralem Pjanic.

City have been linked with a move for the 28-year-old Bosnia and Herzegovina international after missing out on target Jorginho.

But when Guardiola was asked about Pjanic at a press conference in New York on Tuesday, he said: “Pjanic is a player of Juventus and we are not interested in him.

“He is a top player, but we are not interested in him.”

Since winning the Premier League last season in record-breaking fashion, City have recruited winger Riyad Mahrez from Leicester for a club-record £60million.

They had hoped to sign midfielder Jorginho from Napoli as well, but he joined Chelsea on the same day earlier this month as Maurizio Sarri – his boss at the Serie A club – was named as the new manager at Stamford Bridge.

On the possibility of making further additions before the August 9 deadline, Guardiola added at the press conference, footage of which was shown on Sky Sports News: “We will see.

“We are going to decide. Maybe, maybe not, we will see. In this moment, we have a good enough squad.

“We can handle players in different positions. We’ll see in the last days if we decide to buy one player or wait.”