Manchester City have not made a bid for Marc Cucurella, Brighton chairman Tony Bloom has confirmed.
City have signed Julian Alvarez, Erling Haaland, Kalvin Phillips and Stefan Ortega this summer, with Gabriel Jesus, Fernandinho, Romeo Lavia and Darko Gyabi leaving on permanent transfers. Raheem Sterling is set for an exit to Chelsea, having agreed personal terms, while City continue to be linked with Brighton left-back Cucurella to strengthen their full-back options.
However, it seems that Brighton are keen to hold on to the Spaniard, with their chairman issuing a blunt update to official club media. Asked if he could reassure fans over Cucurella's future, Bloom said: "All I can say about Marc is he is a tremendous player, a tremendous person.
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"He's brilliant for the dressing room, the players love him. Graham [Potter] and the coaches love him. I love him, the fans love him.
"He was unbelievably good last season, his first season in the Premier League. We're hoping for more to come, and we haven't had a bid for him."
Pressed on City's links with Cucurella, Bloom then did not rule out a move in future should an acceptable bid be recieved.
“I’m not going to speculate on individual players we may or may not get bids for" he said in quotes relayed by the Athletic.
“The fact that there is speculation and there is interest in our players, I always view that as a positive. It hasn’t always been like that. There’s less than three or four clubs where some of the players are not for sale.
“We’ve got to be realistic if a certain bid comes in and the player wants to move, the player will move, but we are not anticipating, we’re not looking for our best players to move on. If it happens and we get a bid then we have to consider it, but until that point, we carry on.”
City could still move for Cucurella, and chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak promised more signings after Haaland's arrival at the start of the summer. Left-back is perhaps the only area of the squad that could need strengthening, with Joao Cancelo able to move over from the right, and Aleks Zinchenko often proving doubters wrong when playing in that position.
However, both Zinchenko and another left-footed defender, Nathan Ake, have been linked with moves away this summer, with MEN Sport reporting last week that Ake would only be allowed to leave if his asking price was met and a replacement was able to be signed this summer.
City return to pre-season training next week, before flying out to the USA for their pre-season tour.
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