Pep Guardiola’s side have enjoyed a good start to the season and are still thinking about strengthening the squad for the near future.

That’s according to TV Play, who state Manchester City are looking to bolster their midfield and defence.

For midfield, the Citizens’ idea is to bring in a young player who can immediately start to feature under Guardiola. Therefore, they have set their sights on the 22-year-old, who has impressed for the Ligue 1 side this season.

The Serie A side are also interested in the France international, with a contract until 2025.

Club Brugge’s Tajon Buchanan is the ‘first name’ on Manchester City’s list for defence.

The 24-year-old has mainly been used as a right-back this season, scoring three goals and registered four assists from 18 games. The Canadian has been on the Juventus and Inter Milan radar for some time.

The Serie A duo will continue to monitor him, but are aware it’s ‘very difficult’ to compete with Manchester City.

It’s claimed the English champions are ‘ready to invest’ €60m to secure the duo’s services and hand a ‘double blow’ to Juve and Inter in the process. The figure is out of reach for the two Italian clubs, for whom the ‘disappointment of the missed shots is ever closer’.

TV Play, however, don’t specify the fee requested/needed to sign the Frenchman and Buchanan.

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Numerous articles in Brazil have been written about the topic, with some even claiming that a deal with the Stamford Bridge side was done.

However, Paris Saint-Germain have recently joined the fray, and completely turned everything upside down, at least according to Foot Mercato in France, leaving Chelsea in their dust.

The website claims that the Ligue 1 side have now made a €22m offer for the player, coming a few days after reports that the Blues had a €20m bid rejected, clearly trying to make the most of the opportunity.

Corinthians, down their end, would like €25m for their star, and negotiations are continuing between the two clubs to try and find a ‘total agreement’.

The biggest problem for Chelsea, other than the fact their offer has been rejected, is that Moscardo now ‘wants to join’ Paris Saint-Germain in January.

That is seen as a ‘big step forward’ for the French club, and they are also being helped by Corinthians, who don’t want ‘negotiations to last forever’ and the idea is to ‘reach an agreement in the next few days’.

L’Equipe also have an article on Friday on the matter, explaining that Paris Saint-Germain are ‘advancing’ in the transfer, but have not made an official offer yet.

Chelsea thought they had a lead in the race to get him, but it appears the French side have now overtaken them.

Now, Luis Campos ‘is awaited in Brazil in the next few days’ to meet with the player’s agent, Rodolfo Ximenes.

In short, Chelsea need to act very quickly if they don’t want to lose out on Moscardo, but appear to have a lot of work to do to convince him that a move to London is better than Chelsea.

If you ask us, this all feels very reminiscent of the Manuel Ugarte saga, and we all know who won that.

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They got one in Jean-Ricner Bellegarde, but also tried for Habib Diarra, a younger option with more potential.

While Strasbourg eventually sold the former, they stood firm for the latter, and gave him a new contract this month, much to the delight of the Wolves target, as he explained to L’Alsace.

He said: “It means a lot. It’s the club that helped me grow, the club trusted me. To continue the adventure here, it’s beautiful and magnificent.”

L’Alsace do point out that had the Ligue 1 side decided not to ‘lock him down’ as they did, it was likely that the young midfielder would have ‘responded favourably’ to the interest shown in him from RC Lens and Wolves.

He was then kept out of the starting line up for a while to allow him to relax and let the situation around him cool off, but he is now back and impacting his team’s results.

Wolves went as far as offering €25m for the player, showing just how much they were prepared to get the 19-year-old.

There was talk of them still being interested, but with him now under contract at Strasbourg until 2028, the French club have a lot of leverage in negotiations.

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The Blues have already signed the likes of Andrey Santos and Angelo Gabriel from there, with the former unsuccessfully sent on loan to Nottingham Forest, while the latter was gifted to new satellite club Strasbourg in Ligue 1.

L’Equipe in France have a big article on the Brazilian on loan from Chelsea, explaining how difficult it has been for him in France, with some criticisms thrown his way.

While he enjoyed a good start with some promising performances, what followed wasn’t pretty, as the winger is ‘struggling to seduce’ after four months.

The idea was for him to get lots of game time away from Chelsea, and he has mostly been ‘neutral and insipid’ on the pitch since.

He’s accused of being rather predictable with his dribbling, with some of his teammates becoming ‘frustrated’ as they try and offer him solutions.

The biggest issue, however, is his ‘profound tactical flaws’, as he seems incredibly reluctant to track back, which often proves costly for his team.

Due to this, he has found himself out of the starting line-up, with some at the club trying to rally around him to lift him up a bit.

One said: “It’s been hard for a few weeks for Angelo, but he has mitigating circumstances: he’s discovering European football. He didn’t do pre-season with us and he has felt a bit isolated because of the language barrier.”

The club have since brought in João Francisco Almeida as a fitness coach, who is also acting as the player’s interpreter, in hope that this could help him settle in a bit better.

In the meantime, as L’Equipe put it, his expected explosion on the scene will simply have to wait a while longer.

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OGC Nice were keen on signing the left-back in the last window before Wolves blocked his exit. It has worked out well for the player, who featured regularly this season before suffering an injury against Fulham.

The 22-year-old’s fine form saw him linked to a few clubs, but PSG won’t be an option for him. That’s according to journalist Laurent Perrin, who made this claim to Le Parisien, relayed by Le10 Sport.

According to Perrin, PSG advisor Luis Campos doesn’t have the Algeria international in his target list.

“PSG are not interested in Aït-Nouri. They follow fullbacks in case an opportunity arises, but the former Angers player, now an Algerian international, is not on the list,” he said.

“There are no pending cases for the left-back position. We’ll have to see if there are any opportunities, but the managers think they can get by with [Lucas] Hernández and [Nordi] Mukiele while waiting for [Nuno] Mendes to return.”

Perrin dismissing claims of PSG’s interest in the defender should please Wolves and their supporters. Last month, Le10 Sport reported the Premier League side have no intention to sell the player and will block his exit in the next window.

Aït-Nouri is expected to be out of action for the next four weeks, meaning he’ll be fit in time to represent his country at the AFCON in January.

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The story comes from Foot Mercato, and talks about the ‘excitement’ around the 27-year-old following his great start with the Bundesliga side.

The outlet writes that four clubs have ‘come forward for information’ for Guirassy. Manchester United are one of them, along with AS Roma, AC Milan and Newcastle United.

It’s said all of those clubs are looking for solutions for their attacks, and with the striker having 16 goals for Stuttgart this season, he turns into a clear target.

What makes Guirassy such an attractive option is that he may be a very affordable signing, as his release clause is worth just €17m. That can be triggered in the January transfer window.

The player himself ‘does not close the door’ to such an early departure from Stuttgart, and ‘remains attentive’ to the offers he’s about to get.

With such a low price, it’s hard to imagine Manchester United and others making any kind of offer that wouldn’t trigger that low clause.

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That’s according to BILD, who cover the player today and Dortmund’s increasing confidence of him becoming a big-money departure down the line.

They cover how Bynoe-Gittens is currently ‘enchanting the entire BVB’ with his performances, having excelled in the 4-2 win against Gladbach and then almost single-handedly dismantled AC Milan in the Champions League.

That’s got the German side dreaming of their next €100m sale, and perhaps even the biggest sale in the club’s history if things go to plan.

The deal for Bynoe-Gittens is certainly looking like ‘an absolute bargain’ after they paid just €90,000 to get him from Manchester City in 2022.

That money was compensation rather than a transfer fee but with him now valued at €18m and it ‘rising sharply’ there is the potential of a mega profit down the line. Even at this stage they are ‘guaranteed’ a huge profit margin on the player.

It’s raising questions as to why Manchester City let him go in the first place, but BILD explain that the decision was made because of his injury problems earlier in his career.

They had left him unable to train for a long time and his fitness deteriorated, so City decided to let him leave as they ‘no longer had any use for him’.

Dortmund moved quickly to get him and did for the aforementioned €90,000, before then setting U19 coach Mike Turnbull the task of getting him fit again and honing his game for the first team.

That is something he achieved and he’s now a bonafide first-team star, something which is already seeing his value sky rocket and surely leading to some disappointment at Manchester City.

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The defender has been speaking to Tiempo, relayed by Compétition, in which he details his decision to play for Algeria over France and what led him to make that choice.

The Wolves man elected to play for the African country a year ago, having been able to choose between them and France thanks to being born in Montreuil.

His future appeared to be with Les Blues after he appeared in several of their youth set ups, making seven appearances for the U18s, two for the U19s and five for the U21s between September 2018 and 2019.

However, he instead decided he wanted to play for Algeria, perhaps considering them a better option than the French, where the competition is fierce to say the least.

He, though, says it was actually something else that made him make the choice, the passion of Algeria’s fans.

“My choice had been made a year ago, I wanted to have as much experience as possible,” the Wolves defender explained.

“It is a choice of the heart. I was waiting to have a discussion with the coach. I wanted to choose Algeria, but I was waiting for the right moment. When I was ready, I chose Algeria, and it’s a huge source of pride.

“I really like the Algerian supporters. On social networks, they give me strength, regardless of my situation in the club, it motivates me a lot. I would leave my life on the ground for the people.

“I knew they were like that, but during the match against Niger at Nelson-Mandela (his first outing with the Greens), it was indescribable. It’s the best stadium I’ve been to in my life.”

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The Magpies are also in the competition, most recently drawing 1-1 away to Paris Saint-Germain in a highly controversial game.

Newcastle managed to beat the Ligue 1 side 4-1 in the home leg at St James’ Park, where they had the backing of the crowd to help them, and nearly managed to pull off a 1-0 win away were it not for a dubious handball call in the dying minutes of the game.

They will now have to try and beat AC Milan while hoping the French team fail to overcome Borussia Dortmund to stand a chance of qualifying, but will at least be doing so at home with their local crowd cheering them on.

For Nampalys Mendy, there are few better places to enjoy an English atmosphere than St James’ Park, as he revealed in his interview with the local newspaper.

Asked about which atmospheres had left a mark on him, he said: “Leicester is one of the best. Newcastle, it’s incredible: the stadium is massive, always full. What surprised me over there, the stadiums were always full. In France, it’s a bit rarer. It’s the case at Stade Bollaert, but not always.”

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After so many years of limbo at the King Power Stadium, the midfielder now gets to play in the Champions League, where he will face Arsenal on Wednesday night.

Ahead of the game, Mendy sat down with La Voix des Sports, where he discussed the last few years and how tough life was for him at Leicester.

Describing his experience at the now Championship side, the Senegal international felt it was ‘mixed’, as he grew as a person and as a player, and it allowed him to ‘mature and progress’.

An injury did stop him for the best part of two years, and it took him a long time to find his level again, leaving him in a situation where he really had to question his future.

He said: “It’s really when I came back (from his loan at Nice), when Claude Puel was managing, that I managed to properly return, with a good pre-season. I asked myself a lot of questions: stopping? I spoke about it with those close to me. I don’t know if I would have done it, but I thought about stopping. I was mostly frustrated.”

As for whether this game against Arsenal in the Champions League is a great time fro him to prove a point, that’s not how the former Leicester man looks at it.

He said: “Prove a point, I don’t think so, but I’m happy because it’s an English club, and I know people I was with at Leicester will watch this game. It’s an extra motivation. Just like the first game. It’s really personal, it does me a lot of good.

“It’s maybe a bit of ego, but it’s normal, I think. I don’t have bitterness, I try and move on, to do my best. I’ve never cheated. When I was on the pitch, I was performant, but there were decisions. It’s part of our sport. To be honest, I always tried to leave Leicester, but I never managed it. I was never in the offices, but it was always complicated to leave, and not just for me.”

This comes a couple of weeks after the 31-year-old unloaded in an interview about the poor treatment he received and how he felt had ‘come alive’ again since leaving Leicester on a free this summer when his contract finally expired.

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