Manchester City will allow Yaya Toure to join a rival Premier League side as Pep Guardiola fallout continues

Guardiola has said Toure won't play for the club again

Manchester United were linked with Toure in the summer (Getty Images)

Manchester City outcast Yaya Toure will be allowed to join a rival Premier League club if he leaves during the January transfer window.

Pep Guardiola has made it clear that the former Ivory Coast captain has no future at the Etihad after the former Barcelona manager continued his war of words with Toure’s agent Dimitri Seluk this week.

While his City career is all but over, Toure is keen to remain in the Premier League after turning down moves to China and Inter Milan during the summer as he did not want to uproot his family from their Cheshire home.

The Ivorian, who retired from international duty this week, will be allowed to leave in the new year, six months before his contract expires, as City are desperate to get Toure’s £220,000-a-week wages off their books.

There are only a handful of Premier League sides who can afford to get near those wages and consequently it is understood City would allow Toure to move to one of their direct rivals.

The 33-year-old was omitted from City’s 21-man Champions League squad earlier this month, prompting a verbal attack on Guardiola from Seluk, where the agent said the decision was ‘humiliating’ and would lose the club millions of fans in Africa.

Yaya Toure's agent Dimitri Seluk has criticised Pep Guardiola again (Facebook/Dimitri Seluk)

He also said he expected an apology when City didn’t win the Champions League without Toure, leading to Guardiola to exile the midfielder until Seluk apologises to the club.

However, Seluk has since given interviews saying he will not apologise and instead continued his verbal assault.

“The team he took at Barca had been built by Frank Rijkaard and then he was lucky to have Lionel Messi,” Seluk told The Mirror.

“It was Messi who made Barca, not Pep. Luis Enrique has shown that Barca's success was not down to Guardiola.

“It was the same in Munich” Seluk added. “He couldn't fail. My grandfather could have won the league with that team.

“If Pep wants to prove himself as a great manager, then he should go to Zaragoza or Sunderland. Let's see how good he is when he doesn't take over a great team and hasn't got half-a-billion pounds to spend.”

The more the fallout from this decision continues, the more desperate the club will be to get rid of Toure, in case it begins to cause a toxic atmosphere around the club and derail their impressive start to the season.