City 'nowhere near' Berkovic deal

Kevin Keegan has admitted Manchester City are “nowhere near” doing a deal with Portsmouth for out-of-favour midfielder Eyal Berkovic.

Berkovic’s former West Ham manager Harry Redknapp inquired about the 32-year-old Israeli late last week but has so far failed to follow up his initial interest with a firm bid.

Keegan has already indicated his willingness to let Berkovic leave and did not even name the £750,000-rated (€1.06m) player on the bench for yesterday’s FA Cup draw with Leicester.

“The ball is in Portsmouth’s court,” he said. “They know what the situation is but at this moment in time we are nowhere doing a deal.”

Keegan has already pledged to bring in a new goalkeeper this month as back-up for David Seaman.

However, he remains on the lookout for any potential recruit that is “interesting, attractive and affordable” and is due to meet chairman John Wardle later this week to discuss how much a club already £50m (€71m) in debt can afford to spend.

“We definitely need a goalkeeper,” said Keegan. “It will be a year before Nicky Weaver comes back from his cartilage operation and I want more experience on my bench in the second half of the season.

“I have plenty of midfield players and I had plenty of forwards until we let Darren Huckerby join Norwich and lost Paulo Wanchope for 10 weeks with a knee injury.

“Apart from the goalkeeping situation I don’t think we are a club that needs to say we have to bring anyone else but if something came up that was interesting, attractive and affordable I am pretty sure my chairman would support that.”