Manchester City Transfer News and Rumours Tracker: Week of July 8

Edinson Cavani will be the first slide in these Manchester City transfer trackers until he is officially signed somewhere else has been my promise to you since the transfer window opened.

With any luck (for both of us) this will be the last time Cavani leads off in this summer series.

Cavani's coy, will-he-or-won't-he summer antics even eclipsed the inane and insane hand-wringing that accompanied the National Basketball Association's lengthy drama over the eventual landing spot for Dwight Howard.

That is fitting, because unlike Howard, Cavani has a reasonable chance to lead his new team to a championship.

Sadly for City fans, it does not appear that Cavani will be carrying the Sky Blues on his back any time soon. The good news is, with Cavani all but signed with Paris Saint-Germain according to ESPN.co.uk, City can at least be confident that he will not haunt them in the league all season.

So if it is not Cavani—and that is not official yet—who might it be for the Citizens?

Edinson Cavani

Admittedly, the death rattle on Manchester City's pursuit of Edinson Cavani came a while back when ESPNFC.co.uk reported that "Manchester City's interest in Napoli striker Edinson Cavani has cooled."

Of course, that same story asserted that "Isco has become their main transfer target. Um, right.

Anyway, we are a couple of weeks on from City having avowed disinterest in Cavani at the price Napoli wants for him.

Paris Saint-Germain apparently have no such reservations. ESPNFC.co.uk is on the case again, this time averring that "Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini claims Serie A rivals Napoli have struck a deal with Paris Saint-Germain over star striker Edinson Cavani."

Terms of the deal are still undisclosed, although that did not stop Zamparini from running his mouth a bit. "He has outdone the €43 million (£37m) that we got for Javier Pastore when we sold him to PSG," Zamparini blabbed to Radio Radio per the ESPNFC.co.uk piece.

Let us all hope this puts an end to the endless intrigue around Cavani's ultimate whereabouts.

Alvaro Negredo

Perhaps where the Edinson Cavani door is closing, the Alvaro Negredo door is opening for Manchester City.

Duncan McMath for ESPNFC.com reports that "Sevilla striker Alvaro Negredo seems set for a move to Manchester City, despite recent reports suggesting that he would become an Atletico Madrid player by the end of the week."

The 27-year-old striker is in or near the prime of his career, and scored 25 times for Sevilla in La Liga last season.

Moreover, while City is not alone in their pursuit of Negredo, some of the noises coming from Sevilla's management are pretty encouraging.

Per McMath: "Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido said he had run out of patience with the Madrid club over their failure to agree a fee, adding: 'Right now, there is a 0 percent chance that Negredo will sign for Atletico.'"

City fans can be excused for being exuberant about the possibility of this signing, especially if they take the time to read McMath's mash note to Negredo posted on his blog.

Micah Richards

For a guy who missed most of last season with a fairly significant injury, Micah Richards certainly does not lack confidence. Or is it gall?

Jamie Jackson of The Guardian indicates that City brass are confident that "Richards will sign a new contract despite talks stalling due to the right-back wanting assurances about regular playing time."

But wait, there's more.

"Richards also believes he deserves an increase in salary on his present earnings of around £65,000 a week," Jackson continues.

Hmm. Richards missed an extraordinary amount of time last season, so much so that eventually his then-manager Roberto Mancini expressed frustration at how long it took Richards to get fit, per ESPNFC.co.uk.

And the numbers do not lie. Richards made only seven appearances of a possible 38 in league play last season.

Richards wants a new contract (AND A RAISE) coming off that season?

Yeah, that sounds like gall.

Stephan El Shaarawy

This is not a Manchester City rumour, per se, though if ESPN.com saw fit to include the Sky Blues in the story via insinuation, it is beyond my pay grade to call the story an outright falsehood.

Per the ESPN.com report, AC Milan vice president Adriano Galliani says that the club refused an offer of "more than €30 million" for El Shaarawy.

Perhaps out of modesty, or perhaps to keep the bidder interested, Galliani refused to name the club who had made the bid.

Regardless, that is some serious paper Milan turned down to keep El Shaarawy (at least for the time being).

The same report tosses City into the discussion a bit blithely. "El Shaarawy, 20, has been targeted by Manchester City and Chelsea in recent weeks after scoring 16 league goals for Milan last season."

Again, any time a player's name has a figure of more than, say, £25 million or €30 million next to it, you can count on City to be dropped into the story almost as a matter of habit.

But if it was City's bid, good on City. El Shaarawy would have been worth that cost had Milan said yes.

Joleon Lescott

Roberto Mancini left Manchester City with many of his former players just barely able to stifle their chittering, craven voices to keep from exulting over his corpse.

Ah, but there is a new manager at Manchester City, so all is well now. Surely all of those semi-professionals (who only played when they felt like it for Mancini) will revel in Manuel Pellegrini's "engineering."

At least for Joleon Lescott, Mancini's sacking and Pellegrini's hiring came not a moment too soon.

Mancini buried Lescott on his depth chart after a series of indifferent performances from Lescott culminated in a pitiful shift at Ajax Amsterdam in Champions League play.

And yet there is The Guardian, reporting that "Lescott, who has a year left on his contract, has been told he does have a future at City if he wants to remain at the club."

In perhaps the greatest example of British understatement in, well, the last few hours, Jamie Jackson notes that Lescott "had slipped down the pecking order under Pellegrini's predecessor, Roberto Mancini."

You don't say.

If Lescott is comfortable with table scraps after Vincent Kompany and Matija Nastasic have eaten, he will have a place at City.

But don't bet on that.