{"id":546752,"date":"2020-03-23T05:58:19","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T09:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=546752"},"modified":"2020-03-23T05:58:19","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T09:58:19","slug":"report-barcelona-eyeing-manchester-city-defender-aymeric-laporte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/03\/23\/report-barcelona-eyeing-manchester-city-defender-aymeric-laporte\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT: Barcelona Eyeing Manchester City Defender Aymeric Laporte"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barcelona<\/a> are eyeing a move for\u00a0Manchester City<\/a> defender Aymeric Laporte<\/a>, according to Sergi Sol\u00e9 of \u00a0Mundo Deportivo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barcelona Eyeing Manchester City Defender Aymeric Laporte<\/h2>\n

Manchester City\u2019s European Football ban Putting Players\u2019 Futures into Uncertainty<\/h3>\n

Since City\u2019s UEFA ban<\/a>, there have been rumours<\/a> of many of their players\u2019 departure. They will not be able to compete in the Champions League<\/a> or Europa League, and with European football a major attraction for top players, this could be catastrophic for the Sky Blues. David Beckham<\/a>\u2019s Inter Miami reportedly<\/a> want David Silva<\/a>, who is out of contract at the end of the season, and Laporte has become another player who\u2019s Manchester City future is in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

Manchester City\u2019s Defensive Issues<\/h3>\n

Manchester City have had many defensive issues this season. Arguably the worst of their defenders who are still playing regularly is Nicol\u00e1s Otamendi<\/a>. He has appeared 19 times in the league this season but has embarrassed himself a more than ideal amount of times. One of these came in a 2-0 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers<\/a> in late 2019.<\/p>\n

Having played out the majority of an intriguing game, with City even having hit the bar from a free-kick, it was still 0-0. Then, Wolves had a counter-attack.<\/p>\n

Their pace, notably Adama Traor\u00e9<\/a>, made it challenging to deal with, however, Otamendi had a fairly favourable position. Despite this, the Argentinian went in for a slide tackle, but missed the ball completely, allowing the opposition through to score the opening goal of the game.<\/p>\n

Laporte has been injured for a large part of the season, adding to City\u2019s defensive troubles. During his four-month absence from September to January, they kept just five clean sheets in the league, and the absence of John Stones<\/a> for some of this time did not help. For comparison, Liverpool<\/a> kept this amount of clean sheets in less than a month during December and January.<\/p>\n

Losing Laporte to Barcelona would be very challenging for Manchester City, and they would need to replace him, potentially bringing in two new centre-backs to fix their troubles in that position.<\/p>\n

Main Photo<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a>