Zinedine Zidane tried to keep Danilo at Real Madrid but new Manchester City signing was ready for change

The £26.5m signing has revealed a last-ditch attempt by Real Madrid to keep him at the Bernabeu.

New Manchester City signing Danilo has revealed that Zinedine Zidane made a last-gasp sales pitch to keep him at Real Madrid.

In Pep Guardiola’s summer shopping spree of full-backs, Danilo arrives at the Etihad as the cheapest of City’s new recruits, albeit they splashed out £26.5m on the Brazil international.

Despite fellow new boys Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy expected to hold down the first-choice full-back slots this season, the 26-year-old hopes to play more regularly than his two years at Real, where he was limited to a modest 41 appearances.

But while he may have been a bit-part player at the Bernabeu, Zidane was clearly a fan of the former Porto man after trying to persuade him to ignore City’s advances.

When asked whether Zidane attempted to make him stay, Danilo said: "Yes he did, but I was sure I needed to change."

"I needed to think a bit more about myself and find a place where I had more options."

"It was very fast, I was training with Real Madrid, Pep called me and I was very motivated to make this change and start to work with him."

Danilo was also high on Chelsea’s radar, although he brushed aside suggestions that it was a tough choice to reject the Premier League champions.

"It wasn't a difficult decision to choose City over Chelsea. The moment City called me and Pep called me, I knew what I had to do," he said.

The obvious hurdle potentially lying in Danilo’s path is that he is swapping one bit-part role for another, given City spent in excess of £50m on both Walker and Mendy.