Spanish right-back Pedro Porro is expected to move to Sporting Lisbon on a permanent deal from Manchester City, with the Portuguese champions due to trigger a clause in his loan deal
Manchester City are set to sell a player signed by Pep Guardiola that the manager has supposedly never spoken to in his two-and-a-half years at the club.
Right-back Pedro Porro signed for City from sister club Girona in the summer of 2019 for just under £11million but has never made a first-team or under-23 appearance for the club.
Now he is set to complete a move to Sporting Lisbon, with the Portuguese champions poised to trigger a clause in his loan deal.
Porro is into the second season of a two-year loan spell with Sporting and the club have an option to buy for just £7million.
Speaking in July, Porro claimed that he has never even spoken to Guardiola since signing for City in 2019.
He said: “No, I’ve never talked to Pep Guardiola. I don’t think he even knows they (City) hired me.
“But they must be aware of what I’ve been doing. I can’t say anything, what I can tell you is that next [this] week there could be something big.”
Despite Guardiola apparently being unaware of Porro, City have reportedly negotiated a buy-back clause into the sale of the Spaniard to Sporting.
While other clubs will have to trigger a £38million release clause in his contract, City will have the option to re-sign Porro for just £17million.
Porro has impressed in Portugal, starting 30 league matches last season as Sporting won the league for the first time since 2002, losing just once.
Overall, he has made 50 appearances for the club and weighed in with six goals from right-back.
Prior to joining Sporting on loan, Porro was sent back to Spain and spent the 2019/20 season with Real Valladolid, where he made 15 appearances as they finished 13th in La Liga.
Porro’s situation is similar to that of his compatriot Angelino who said that Guardiola “killed me and my self-confidence” after he left the club.
Angelino made just 12 appearances for the club after being re-signed from PSV Eindhoven before he was loaned out to RB Leipzig 6 months later.
He went on to make the loan move permanent in the summer of 2020 and later said Guardiola “didn’t give me a real chance”.
