Manchester City do not have an agreement in place with Liverpool winger Luis Diaz, despite transfer speculation gaining traction on social media, numerous reports have stressed.

Spanish broadcaster El Chiringuito claimed that City had struck a deal with Diaz over personal terms on a five-year contract and that the Premier League champions were willing to pay Liverpool €70m (£59.8m) to sign the Colombian.

The rumour was quickly picked up by Liverpool and transfer aggregator accounts on X, formerly Twitter, commanding hundreds of thousands of views. One account’s justification was that the same original journalist had been hot on the collapse of Samu Omorodion’s Chelsea transfer and has, in the past, been referenced by transfer specialist Fabrizio Romano.

But Romano himself quickly published a post on the subject of Diaz, insisting “Manchester City sources deny any agreement”. Liverpool journalist James Pearce and Manchester City reporter Sam Lee both said similar things, shutting down the rumour from all sides.

City have banked £81.5m from the somewhat surprise sale of Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid. The Argentine had been a key player in the club’s success since he arrived in 2022, often the first alternative to Erling Haaland or Kevin De Bruyne, but was seemingly frustrated by his role.

But rather than invest that money in a direct replacement for Alvarez, 90min understands that City are looking to promote from within and offer more game time to the likes of James McAtee, back from two seasons on loan at Sheffield United, and Oscar Bobb, both home-grown 21-year-olds.

McAtee and Bobb each started the Community Shield victory over Manchester United at Wembley on Saturday, as did fellow academy graduate, 19-year-old technically gifted midfielder Nico O’Reilly.

City are more likely to spend the Alvarez windfall on a deeper central midfielder, with Newcastle United cult hero Bruno Guimaraes still of interest to the Premier League champions.

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