According to reports out of Brazil yesterday, Dani Alves is still waiting on some technicalities to first free himself from Juventus and then sign with Manchester City.
Ora Bolas: Dani Alves rejeita oferta maior do Chelsea e já tem chegada prevista ao City https://t.co/oM7qNwEbOZ pic.twitter.com/VZlyTKbw0r
— Goal Brasil (@GoalBR) June 26, 2017
As per Goal’s Bruno Andrade, Juventus have yet to officially cancel the remaining year on the right back’s contract, which will allow him to move on a free transfer to City where he will be reunited with his former Barcelona boss, Pep Guardiola. A medical is apparently scheduled only for next week at this point, though surely that’s just a formality after the 34-year-old agreed terms on a two-year deal.
The interesting side-note to this is that apparently Alves rejected €2m more from Chelsea to make his reunion happen, even though the Blues were also offering a two-year contract — Chelsea’s long-standing policy of only offering one-year contracts to players 30 and over has never truly been tested by a new signing, as it’s only ever been applied visibly in contract extensions.
City are set to pay €5m per year. Chelsea were willing to go up to €7m, though Alves probably has a cleared path to the first-team up in Manchester.
Oh well.
(That does leave Chelsea still in need of some proper depth and reinforcement at right wing-back, where we only have the emergency defensive option of César Azpilicueta at the moment — which weakens the back three a fair amount at the same time — and a couple long-shots from the youth like Ola Aina or Todd Kane.)