Blow to Barcelona as Deal fo Top Target Laporte Falls Through

It is not often that Barcelona end up losing out on a player that they are intent on signing and indeed it is tough to recall the last time that such a thing happened, however it seems that they have lost out to English club Manchester City in their bid to sign Athletic Bilbao's highly rated defender Aymeric Laporte. 21 year old Laporte is regarded as one of the most promising central defenders in Europe and Manchester City's incoming manager Pep Guardiola is known to be a big fan of the Bilabo player, while Barcelona have been tracking the player since last season.

However, according to reports, it seems that the defender is headed to Manchester City for a jaw dropping fee of around £40 million and it will certainly come as a big blow for Barcelona, who were hoping to overhaul their central defensive options with the addition of one of the best young Spanish central defenders of recent years. Earlier, it had been reported that the player is one of Manchester City's top priorities and their sporting director had even personally travelled to Spain in order to show their intenet. The fact that City are prepared to break the bank for the striker even though he is currently injured with a broken leg and would not be able to make a comeback till August is a sign of how much the highly the player is rated by Guardiola.

All is not lost for Barcelona, now that they have failed to land one of their prime targets for the summer and considering the dearth of top class defenders in the market it could have been classed as a big blow. However, the club have identified Paris Saint Germain's Brazilian defender Marquinhos as their failsafe and are going to make a substantial bid for the defender at some point in the summer. It has been reported that the player has fallen out of the manager at PSG and has in fact agreed personal terms with Barcelona.