Report: Manchester City trying to force Bayern Munich to up their bid for Leroy Sane

Hooray, more news! According to the Evening Standard, Manchester City are ready to “play hardball” to prevent Bayern Munich from getting Leroy Sane on the cheap. Given that Pep Guardiola has already admitted that the winger will definitely leave the club, the Citizens probably want to make sure they get as much money out of the transfer as possible.

According to the report, Bayern have bid around €40m for Sane, which is well below Man City’s evaluation. The club is willing to play hardball and doesn’t plan on buying a replacement when Sané finally leaves. The blue half of Manchester seems set with players like Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne, Gabriel Jesus, and Riyadh Mahrez on their roster.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp even joked that City could substitute their players five times and still keep Sane on the bench. This basically means that there's no chance the player could pull a Dembele and go AWOL in an attempt to force a move, City just won't care. It's unlikely that the transfer saga would've gotten to that point anyway, but taking the option off the table arguably puts City in a stronger negotiating position.

What does this development mean for the ongoing transfer saga? Very little as it turns out. There's probably room to speculate about how much Bayern's bosses might be willing to commit to signing a single player in the post-corona transfer market. This is made more complicated by the fact that Sané has not played a single game of top flight football in almost a year, and his form after returning from an ACL injury is completely unknown.

In any case, it seems that the saga, while apparently in its final act, has yet to reach to reach the climax. Let’s hope that things start to move a little bit quicker, for the sake of our sanity.