Man City line up £30m bid for Luiz as Chelsea star is fined for revealing injury on Twitter

By jacko

Wanted man: Luiz

Manchester City have turned their attention to Chelsea defender David Luiz after being frustrated in their attempts to bring Daniel Agger to the Etihad Stadium.
City boss Roberto Mancini has stepped up his search for a new defender after Micah Richards was ruled out for 10 weeks.
The club were already lacking defensive cover before Richards picked up an ankle injury at the Olympics, and after several bids for Agger were rejected by Liverpool, they have now had a £30million bid turned down by Chelsea for Brazilian international Luiz, according to The Sun.
The 25-year-old was left out Chelsea's squad for Wednesday night's 4-2 win over Reading, with the player citing a knee injury as the reason on his Twitter account.
But The Sun are reporting that Luiz - who arrived at Chelsea in January 2011 in a £24million deal from Benfica - was in fact left out as the club were continuing negotiations with City over his sale.

 

The player has been fined for his use of the social networking site to break the news of his injury. Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo said: 'This social media thing is all around us now. We’ll deal with it internally.'

Barely missed: Chelsea secured a 4-2 victory over Reading without David Luiz

 

Mancini wants to add reinforcements to his squad before the transfer window closes next Friday to ensure that the defending Premier League champions are not overtaken by their rivals.
Chelsea are set to take their spending to £70m with the acquisition of right-back Cesar Azpilicueta from Marseille, and Manchester United have already splashed the cash on Robin van Persie and Shinji Kagawa.

City have made signing a centre-back a priority, with the ageing Kolo Toure and the error-prone Stevan Savic currently the only alternatives to their first-choice pairing of Vincent Kompany and Joleon Lescott.

New team-mates? Luiz challenges City's Aguero during the Community Shield

 

Mancini is also set to conclude a £5m deal for Swansea winger Scott Sinclair this week, while he is also in the market for another midfielder - despite Jack Rodwell having arrived last week in a £12m deal.

Chelsea would prefer to keep Luiz in their ranks, though they may be tempted by an astronomical offer given that Azpilicueta's arrival allows Branislav Ivanovic to move to centre-back and compete with Gary Cahill for a place alongside Blues skipper John Terry.