Ornstein: Man City refuse to engage with unserious €45m offer for midfielder

Manchester City have made their asking price for Rodri very clear, and Barcelona are going to have to massively improve their bid.

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While Fabrizio Romano has been feverishly reporting on Barcelona’s attempts to sign Rodri from Man City in the last 24 hours, trickling out his usual incremental updates, we have all been waiting for the real authority to update us.

Finally we have it – David Ornstein has just put out a longer piece going into details on the deal and how far apart the teams currently are from one another.

Man City not engaging over low-ball Rodri offers

Top transfer guru Ornstein claims that Barcelona’s opening offer was around €45m, with add ons on top.

However, they’re aware City want something “in the region of €80m” to make a deal happen. The Premier League side “insist no meaningful club-to-club talks are currently taking place, as a bid they consider serious has yet to be made.”

Ouch.

A player of Rodri’s quality is pretty much irreplaceable in the short term, and it seems Man City would rather keep him and lose him on a free in a year’s time than accept a smaller fee for him.

Barcelona are in the reverse position – they don’t want to overpay for a player they can get for free in a year’s time. But following the loss of Frenkie de Jong to an ACL injury, they need a midfielder sooner rather than later.

Given how good Hansi Flick’s team are looking, a player like Rodri could be the missing piece to take them to the next level. How much are they willing to pay for that?