Brighton chairman Tony Bloom gave bold assessment of Marc Cucurella transfer amid Manchester City £30m

Pep Guardiola’s Premier League champions have bid £30m for Brighton’s Marc Cucurella – which falls some way short of Albion’s £50m valuation.

Cucurella, 23, joined the Seagulls in last summer’s transfer window in a £15.4m move from La Liga outfit Getafe.

The former Barcelona youth player was superb in his first season in the top flight and helped Albion to a record breaking ninth placed finish.

The Spaniard is contracted with club until June 2026 and chairman Tony Bloom is under no pressure to sell.

“Marc is a tremendous player, a tremendous person,” said Bloom to BBC Sussex, earlier this month.

"He’s brilliant for the dressing room. The players love him, Graham and the coaches, love him, I love him, the fans love him.

"He was unbelievably good last season, his first season in the Premier League.

"The fact that there is speculation and there is interest in our players, I always view that as a positive.

"It hasn’t always been like that. There’s less than three or four clubs where some of the players are not for sale.

“We’ve got to be realistic if a certain bid comes in and the player wants to move, the player will move, but we are not anticipating, we’re not looking for our best players to move on.

"If it happens and we get a bid then we have to consider it, but until that point, we carry on.”