Man City offer £18m for former United defender Jonny Evans

Former Manchester United defender Jonny Evans could be heading back to the city, claims BBC Sport, but it's Manchester City who are wooing him.

The Beeb claims that the 29-year-old Northern Ireland international has impressed City manager Pep Guardiola and "talks have taken place over the past couple of weeks" between the Sky Blues and West Brom.

The BBC says that Albion have rejected City's initial £18m bid for Evans, who played 198 times for the Red Devils before signing for the Baggies in 2015 in a deal worth a mere £8m.

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The West Brom skipper has two years to run on his deal at The Hawthorns but according to the BBC Guardiola is anxious to sign the central defender to stiffen his defence.

It's reported that Leicester were unsuccessful earlier in the summer with a £10m bid so City's failure with a bid nearly double that size indicates West Brom's determination to hang on to Evans.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the Baggies will "only consider letting Evans leave if Tony Pulis manages to sign a replacement first", and even then the paper predicts that City will need to up their offer to around £30m.

Nonetheless that sum is well within Guardiola's price range and still less than half the £70m that Southampton have been demanding for Holland centre-half Virgil van Dijk.

Apparently the City gaffer admires "Evans' ability on the ball and sound positional sense" and also his versatility in defence.

Meanwhile the Telegraph also says that Guardiola hasn't given up on signing Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal and the club "are expected to lodge a formal bid shortly", which will be no less than £60m.

But as far as Dele Alli goes, the Sky Blues can forget about getting their hands on the Tottenham ace. The Sun reports that Spurs chairman Daniel Levy has told City Alli will not be sold, "even for £150m", so they and Barcelona can both cross the 21-year-old off their summer shopping list.