PEP GUARDIOLA TARGETS ANTOINE SEMENYO AS MANCHESTER CITY OPEN JANUARY TRANSFER WINDOW TALKS
Manchester City have opened talks with Antoine Semenyo. Pep Guardiola looks to trigger the winger's £65m January release clause.
Word on the street is that Manchester City is chatting with Bournemouth's winger, Antoine Semenyo, says sources.
City's just one of a bunch of big Premier League teams looking to trigger Semenyo's exit clause, which is somewhere between £60 million and £65 million.
Liverpool, Manchester United, and Tottenham are also seriously trying to make January deals for the Ghana player.
talkSPORT says that Arsenal might jump in if they get rid of a winger next month, but they're not expecting a busy transfer period.
City's got a head start on other teams by beginning talks with Semenyo two weeks before the winter window even opens.
Their manager, Pep Guardiola, is currently missing wingers Jeremy Doku and Oscar Bobb because they're injured, and Omar Marmoush is playing for Egypt in the AFCON.
Semenyo will be around all winter since Ghana didn't make it to AFCON.
This season, the 25-year-old is tied for the third-highest scorer in the Premier League, with seven goals in 15 games.
He signed a new five-year contract with Bournemouth earlier this year. Even with all the rumours, he's said to be cool about what's next.
Semenyo just scored again in that wild 4-4 game against Manchester United, after not scoring for eight games.
Bournemouth’s manager, Andoni Iraola, has had to dodge questions all season about what's happening with Semenyo.
Back in November, he said, Antoine is our player, and he's staying our player. Ask me about the market in January, not now; I’m not sweating it.
I hate talking about this stuff in August or January—when the market’s open. November, though, is no time for these discussions.
I care more about the guys who are playing tomorrow, the short-term stuff; that’s what matters. We'll talk about the rest in January.
talkSPORT says:
Semenyo's going to be a hot topic, at least for the first part of January.
We broke the story that he's got an exit clause in his contract that kicks in during the January window.
There's a deadline, around the middle of the month, for clubs to use it.
Liverpool's interested. Richard Hughes, their sporting director, is the one who brought Semenyo to Bournemouth from Bristol City.
Manchester United's definitely in the running, too, along with Tottenham—though I'd say Tottenham's a long shot right now.
WHY DECEMBER 2025 WAS PEP GUARDIOLA’S MOST "STATISTICALLY PERFECT" MONTH EVER
Pep Guardiola’s "most impressive month" is over. Read why Man City are now favourites to snatch the 2026 Premier League title.
It's tough to say how the 2025/26 team will stack up against Pep Guardiola's other squads from his decade at the Etihad. They've shown a lot of potential six months into the season, but trophies aren't a sure thing yet.
Still, December 2025 definitely stands out as a crazy good month in Guardiola's 95-month tenure. It's not just that the Blues are doing well in the Premier League and Champions League, but where they got those wins.
Winning at Fulham, Real Madrid, Crystal Palace, and Nottingham Forest in a single month is quite the feat. Craven Cottage might not be the scariest place, but it's a long trip for a midweek game. Plus, the other three teams have been a pain for City in recent years.
Guardiola might not be thrilled with how they won—he wants them to be consistent for the entire match and for his young players to really show who they are all the time. But getting wins at those stadiums will help his players learn as they go. Once you’ve won at the Bernabeu, not many places can intimidate you, and the Forest win was huge because City lost there badly nine months prior.
City has totally answered questions about their away game performance this season. They lost three of their four league games—against Brighton, Villa, and Newcastle—on the road. They also messed up at Monaco in the Champions League after a bad second half when they should have won. Erling Haaland was mad and stormed off after the final whistle.
Those worries are gone after a month that was one of City's best ever away from home, statistically speaking. The last time City won all their away games in a month was in early 2024/25. Before that, you’d have to go back almost two years to February 2024 to find a month where they won four.
That February 2024 team was on its way to winning a fourth straight Premier League title and reaching the FA Cup Final. Before that, it was December 2021. City never won four away games in a month during their treble season, for instance.
Part of that is just how the schedule works—there aren't always four away games in a month. And once April and May roll around, if City is still in the FA Cup, they play at a neutral site. Still, it's amazing how good their December was, picking up so many good results from tough places.
That changes things as they head into another tough month with four more away games. They're at Sunderland on New Year's Day (who haven't lost at home in the Premier League this season), then at Newcastle for the first leg of their league cup semi-final, knowing they lost there recently and haven't won there in two years.
A few days later, it's the Manchester derby, followed by a trip to Bodo as they try to finish in the top eight in the first stage of the Champions League. City has done pretty well at Old Trafford lately, but derbies are always tense. And a plastic field in the Arctic Circle doesn't sound easy.
But City can go into these games feeling more confident after the December they just had. No matter how much the home teams try to rattle them, Guardiola’s improving squad has proven they can get results anywhere. They’ll see the first game of the year in the Northeast as a chance to really show what they want to accomplish in 2026.
OFFICIAL REPORT: RODRI RETURNS AS MANCHESTER CITY EXTEND DOMINANT EIGHT-MATCH WINNING STREAK
Rodri returns as Manchester City extends its winning run to eight games. Discover how the Club World Cup saved City's season.
It felt right having Rodri back. Pep Guardiola talked more openly than before about how good the Club World Cup was for Manchester City. He'd said it could be a disaster for the team. Now, they see it as what got them back on track.
At the end of June, he said, The main thing is to get back to our old selves. That's my goal for this competition. I want them to feel like we're back to being competitive, like we have for most of the last decade. Then we'll see.
We'll see after the final. We'll rest as much as the Premier League allows. Maybe it'll be awful in the winter. Maybe we'll be tired, and the World Cup will have messed us up. I don't know; we've never done this before. We'll find out when we get back.
The good from the Club World Cup wasn't clear right away. City played alright against Juventus, but then had a tough loss against Al Hilal in the last 16. Plus, Rodri hurt his hamstring on a bad field during that loss, which messed up his recovery from his ACL injury.
In September, Rodri started three games in a week against United, Napoli, and Arsenal. That wore him out, and he soon got another hamstring issue at Brentford, keeping him out for about ten weeks.
It might not be fair, but it doesn't seem like the Club World Cup helped Rodri get better. His being back in the team at the City Ground hints at a better second half of the season.
When he's back on the field, he'll join a team that's figured out how to win and fight for the league title without him. City has won their last eight games in a row in all competitions. Their longest streak since winning the Club World Cup. Guardiola mentions that the team has rediscovered the identity he wanted.
Despite worrying about the tournament and the problems that came up, FIFA's power move has given City a chance to reset, which they really needed to get back to full strength.