CITY SPECIAL Jorginho agreed to join City says agent

JORGINHO had an agreement in place to join City before Chelsea gatecrashed the deal, according to the player’s agent.

The Italian midfielder headed Pep Guardiola’s list of transfer targets over the summer, with the 26-year-old earmarked as competition for Fernandinho in midfield.

But the Napoli midfielder opted to follow manager Maurizio Sarri from Serie A to Stamford Bridge, and has produced a string of impressive performances in his debut Premier League campaign so far.

“It was all done with Jorginho,” the player’s agent Joao Santos told Radio Kiss Kiss Napoli.

“There was an agreement, but there was no agreement between the clubs. All parties have to agree, and one did not. Then Chelsea asked what the situation was after Sarri arrived and Jorginho went to London.”

Guardiola confirmed at the end of the transfer window that the Blues had attempted to lure the midfielder to the Etihad.

“We were close but in the end Jorginho decided to stay with Sarri,” he said last month.

“I’ve said before that I want players who want to come here. He didn’t want that. We tried, we believed it was done but at the last turn he decided on Chelsea.”

It came as a second midfield disappointment for Guardiola, with the Blues having seen Fred opt to join United after City approached the Brazilian midfielder in January. PEP Guardiola has tried to keep Benjamin Mendy grounded this season, but none of the City manager’s efforts have perhaps been as effective as Didier Deschamps.’

The affable Blues left-back has been one of the star players over the last month with his club, credited with three assists in four games and giving the Premier League champions a weapon they missed last season – his battery of crosses.

It hasn’t been a perfect start. There has been evidence of the need for defensive improvement, public admonishing from the manager for Mendy’s prolific social media activity and reported concerns over how he spends his free time.

But the Frenchman is still in positive credit at City and when you have gone all out to land a player that can transform your team and then had to wait nearly a year to get him on the pitch, it makes sense to get them integrated into the team quickly as possible.

Mendy headed Simon Bajkowski off as for international duty with the reputation of both his game and his position considerably boosted. Just as he had made headlines for his role in City’s bright success, Chelsea’s Marcos Alonso and Liverpool’s Andrew Robertson have helped to make the left-back slot arguably more fashionable than ever before the Premier League. Maurizio Sarri’s praise for Alonso as ‘maybe the best left- in