Savinho wants Tottenham, and City cannot sell him until Chelsea sell them Pedro Neto
The Brazilian sat out training on Thursday and City called it illness. The hold-up is not the fee, it is that City have nobody to replace him with yet.
Aug 14, 2026
Savinho did not train with Manchester City on Thursday 13 August. City said he was ill. Almost nobody in England read it that way, and by Friday the Brazilian’s position had not changed: he wants to join Tottenham Hotspur, and he would like it done soon.
The obstacle is not Savinho, and it is not really Tottenham either. City cannot let him go until they have someone to put in his place, and the winger they want is at Chelsea.
The bid, or the bids
Reported figures have moved around all week. Yahoo Sports put Tottenham’s offer at around £68 million on Friday. The Brazilian outlet Globo had it at £85 million two days earlier, and that is the number most of the English coverage picked up. Nobody has published a City statement setting an asking price.
What the reports agree on is the shape of it. Tottenham have made a formal offer, City have not accepted it, and the two clubs are arguing about structure rather than about whether a deal exists. The window shuts at 11pm on 1 September.
£21 million, then seven league starts
City signed Savinho from Troyes on 18 July 2024 for an initial £21 million, with add-ons that could take it to £33.6 million. His first season was the good one: 48 appearances, three goals, 13 assists, a regular in a Pep Guardiola side.
The second was not. In Guardiola’s final season before he stepped down in May, Savinho played 24 Premier League matches, mostly from the bench, finishing with one goal and one assist. That is a squad player’s return, and it came after he had signed a new contract in October 2025 that runs to June 2031, turning down Tottenham interest at the time to sign it.
Ten months later he is asking to go to the club he said no to. If Tottenham do pay anything near £68 million for him, they will be paying it for one excellent season and one quiet one.
City want Pedro Neto, and they cannot ask yet
Enzo Maresca, appointed at the end of June on a three-year deal, has settled on Pedro Neto as the replacement. He coached Neto at Chelsea, the club he left to take the City job. Both players are right wingers by preference, City have made contact with Neto’s representatives, and Chelsea want somewhere around £70 million.
City will not make a formal approach until Savinho has gone. Which means a winger who has told his club he wants to leave is stuck waiting for his club to be allowed to ask about the man who would replace him. Maresca’s public line has been that anything can still happen while the window is open, which is true and also a way of saying nothing.
Tottenham have already spent the money
Spurs stayed up on the final day last season and then spent about £237 million, a club record. They broke their transfer record twice inside forty-eight hours, £85 million for Mateus Fernandes and £100 million for Sandro Tonali. Jan Paul van Hecke cost a reported £52 million. Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka arrived on frees.
Roberto De Zerbi is the reason for all of it, and he is the reason Savinho is on the list. De Zerbi said in July that the spending was not finished. Tottenham’s season starts on 22 August, which gives everyone ten days to find out whether that was a statement of intent or just something a manager says in August.