Manchester City are ready to end their pursuit of Napoli ace Jorginho and target Real Madrid midfielder Mateo Kovacic and Southampton’s Mario Lemina, claims The Daily Mail.
The Premier League champions have been locked in talks with Napoli for months but are struggling to agree a fee for Jorginho.
City have already had a £44m bid for the Italy international knocked back and Pep Guardiola is unwilling to sanction a deal to match Napoli’s £60m valuation.
Guardiola’s side have made a concrete effort not to overspend in the transfer market in the last six months, similarly pulling out of a deal to sign Alexis Sanchez in January.
City are still hopeful of landing Jorginho but have made it clear they would have no issue turning their attention to one of their other two transfer targets to fill a deep midfield role.
The Blues have been monitoring Lemina’s progress at Southampton and believe the Gabon international is good enough to make the step to City, having previously played for Juventus.
Guardiola is also interested in Kovacic, who has struggled to nail down a regular first team place at Madrid since making the shock move from Inter in 2015.
However, the Croatia international will likely wait until Madrid appoint Zinedine Zidane’s successor before even contemplating leaving the European champions this summer.
Of players that attempted at least 50 dribbles in the last two La Liga campaigns, only Geoffrey Kondogbia (85.9%) and Alex Granell (85.7%) had a better success rate than Kovacic (84.7%).
