UK Edition
Arsenal and Leicester City fail with £25m Jonny Evans bids, as Manchester City lie in wait
Arsenal and Leicester City have had bids worth at least £25 million for Jonny Evans rejected by West Bromwich Albion as Manchester City’s hopes of signing the Northern Ireland centre-half hang in the balance.
Evans is understood to be keen on a move to City but the Manchester club ideally need to offload Eliaquim Mangala before they can push ahead with a deal and the misfit France defender is wavering over a move to West Brom.
Pep Guardiola is desperate to bring in Evans as cover at centre-half but if City succeed in their efforts to sign Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal before the close of the transfer window tomorrow night and fail to get Mangala off the wage bill it is not certain they will be able to conclude a £30 million deal for Evans.
Evans has been training at City’s CFA headquarters all week with Northern Ireland, who are due to fly to San Marino at 11am tomorrow ahead of their World Cup qualifier on Friday. As things stand, Evans is due to travel with the rest of his Northern Ireland team-mates, unless developments alter the picture.
City are still hoping to persuade Mangala to move to West Brom and, if that happens, they could seek to finalise a fee with the Midlands club for Evans and conduct a medical before he departs with Northern Ireland from Manchester Airport.
But Arsenal could look to exploit the impasse and raise their offer for Evans after a bid of £25 million, which is also thought to have included the offer of a youth player on loan, was rebuffed.
Equally, if City’s move for Sanchez collapses, they would be in a position to be able to push Evans through, although that could entail the club having to send a delegation to San Marino to conduct a medical or Evans staying back and joining up with the Northern Ireland squad later in the day.
The situation is far from ideal for Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill ahead of a must win game against San Marino, especially as he is already without his other two Premier League centre-halves, Gareth McAuley and Craig Cathcart, through injury, and provide further vindication for those in favour of having the transfer window close before the season starts. Nonetheless, O’Neill said he was willing to be flexible if the situation demands it.
“Until anything is agreed, whether it be with Manchester City, Arsenal or Leicester – and there's nothing to say another club won't come into the equation late in the day – we really can't put a process in place to be honest,” O’Neill said. “Our intention is unless something changes dramatically between now and when we depart tomorrow morning, the situation as is with the 26 players and Jonny will be part of that. If something extreme happens and we have to try and facilitate that then we would look at that.
“It would have been great if it had have been done last week or wherever it's going be done. Of course it is. But the clubs aren't doing it, and rightly so, intentionally to make it more difficult for us. They have to do their own business without the consideration of internationals, it's made their job probably harder because players are all over the world now and that can't make it certainly any easier for the clubs to do it. Technology and the resources these clubs have mean it's possible to do it even if the player isn't in the vicinity at that minute in time.
“Whatever happens Jonny will be ready to play on Friday night, I've no doubts about that. It's a difficult situation for any player, for myself the manager and all international managers I'm sure. The window shuts tomorrow night but there's actually some games tomorrow night, I don't know how that's going to work for any players that are possibly involved.
“Our job is just to focus on ourselves and just to facilitate in any way, should a club agree terms or should a transfer come to fruition that we facilitate it in the best way possible but also the club do it in such a way that is least disruptive to ourselves. Equally we're not in a position to turn around and say to a player: 'He can't leave, he can't do that'. It's his career that is at stake. If something does happen between now and tomorrow night we're fairly confident it won't disrupt us too much.”