Porto have again given assurances that midfielder Maniche would not be transferred away from the club.
The announcement came after reports claiming Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira would almost certainly be joining Real Madrid.
Ricardo Teles, a sporting administrator at Porto was responding to questions upon arriving back in Portugal from New York.
Asked directly whether Maniche was staying, he replied “of course.”
He also admitted that there were several players Porto would be prepared to sell, among them: Paulo Assuncao, Hugo Ibarra, Jankauskas and Marco Ferreira.
Teles did however admit that “there are reasons to maintain optimism”, for the forthcoming campaign, before adding “we have great players,”
“We sold Ferreira but now we have Seitaridis; Deco left, Diego came; we sold Ricardo Carvalho and went to find the good player that is Pepe. I have no doubt that we will remain a great team.”
