“I would love” – Pep Guardiola sends transfer plea to Manchester City star amid Bundesliga interest | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has sent a clear transfer message to one of his first-team stars amid growing interest from the Bundesliga.

James McAtee has endured bright moments throughout the ongoing season for Manchester City, but consistent opportunities to excel have been hard to come by, with minutes having only increased marginally in recent matches.

A bright showing from the bench away to Leicester City before the turn of the year emphasised the standard of player available to Pep Guardiola and his coaching staff, before a hat-trick against Salford City further strengthened calls for a starting place.

And after a Premier League goal away to Ipswich Town a week later, transfer talk around a potential loan exit for the remainder of the season intensified with suitors from Germany making formal approaches to Manchester City for the 22-year-old.

However, speaking during a recent press conference, manager Pep Guardiola has insisted that he would “love” for McAtee to remain at Manchester City beyond the ongoing transfer window, despite conversations around a potential switch to the Bundesliga this month.

“I would love him to stay here,” Guardiola made clear. “I repeat again; I was the one who relied on him to stay and to come back, to come back, to come back. I wanted him to stay,” in reference to the last summer transfer window.

But on what could come this month, some caution was offered by the Catalan coach who said, “But what’s going to happen, like on potential new incomings, I don’t know.”

The most-recent reports have claimed that Bayer Leverkusen made a formal approach to Manchester City over the possibility of a loan deal until the end of the season, with an option to buy the England youth international in the summer.

It has been claimed that manager Xabi Alonso is a huge admirer of McAtee’s talents, although subsequent reports have since suggested that Leverkusen’s interest may have been cut due to a breakthrough in talks over a deal for Aston Villa’s Emiliano Buendia.

For now, it remains to be seen whether any other clubs will come calling in the days that remain in the winter transfer market, and there is a chance that sides could still look to test Manchester City’s stance over wanting to retain the talent for the rest of the campaign.