EXCLUSIVE: Man City to beat Arsenal to Neto with special promise

Steve Kay

• Updated: 15 Jan 2024 19:38 GMT
• 3 min read

Exclusive

Manchester City see Wolves winger Pedro Neto as a major transfer target and are ready to play their ace in the battle with Arsenal for the 23-year-old.

FootballTransfers can exclusively reveal that City are ready to promise Neto first-team football in a bid to beat the Gunners to a player the Emirates club have followed for an extensive period.

Bernardo Silva and Ruben Dias have been speaking to the player and instructing him to sign for the Etihad club.

Such a tactic is well established in Pep Guardiola’s transfer playbook, with FootballTransfers revealing in the summer that the former Barcelona boss had sent Kevin De Bruyne to persuade Jeremy Doku to leave Rennes for the quadruple winners.

City are eager to make it clear to Neto that he will have a prominent role in their first team next season. The Portuguese has stipulated that if he is to leave Wolves, it will be to a club where he will get plenty of game time.

Guardiola is ready to accommodate him by moving Phil Foden into a more central role, with the manager looking for a more conventional winger to take his place.

Arsenal unable to offer Neto first-team shirt

This spells bad news for Arsenal in the pursuit of Neto, with Mikel Arteta unlikely to be able to give the winger the same first-team assurances.

The winger is extremely unlikely to replace Bukayo Saka in the Gunners hierarchy, and even if the England star were to swap flanks, that would raise the question over what might happen with Gabriel Martinelli.

Neto has enjoyed a remarkable season for Wolves, scoring or assisting in eight-straight Premier League matches before succumbing to a hamstring problem that ruled him out for much of November and December.

Now fit again, the Wolves star will be aiming to get back to his best level and convince Man City fully that he is worth a starting place next season.