Manchester City have had their opening bid for Nottingham Forest midfielder Elliot Anderson rejected, according to BBC Sport, and honestly nobody should be surprised by that. Forest have spent the last couple of seasons building something genuinely exciting at the City Ground, and they are not going to let one of their better players walk out the door on the cheap.
Anderson has been one of the more interesting midfielders in the Premier League over the past year or so. He is energetic, progressive with the ball, and still only 22 years old, which makes him exactly the kind of player City would want to add depth and long-term quality to their engine room. Pep Guardiola's side have had a slightly more patchy time of things recently by their own absurdly high standards, so you can see the logic in wanting to bring in fresh legs in the middle of the park.
For Forest though, selling Anderson would be a real statement of weakness at this stage of their development. Nuno Espirito Santo has got that squad ticking along nicely and losing a key midfielder to a direct rival in the same league is not exactly the move of a club with ambitions. If they are going to sell, they will want serious money, and an opening bid from anyone is almost always going to get laughed out of the room anyway. That is just how transfers work these days.
City will almost certainly come back with a bigger offer. That is the pattern. First bid gets knocked back, second bid gets closer, third bid gets accepted or the player starts making noises about wanting to leave. We have seen this story a hundred times. The question is just how much Forest are willing to hold out for and whether Anderson himself fancies the move to the Etihad.
As a United fan it is mildly entertaining watching City scramble around in the transfer market for once rather than just getting whoever they want immediately. Small victories and all that.
Let me know your thoughts.