Joleon Lescott, the Everton defender, has risked a backlash from supporters on the eve of the new season by telling the club that he wants to leave in a bold attempt to force through a move to Manchester City.

Lescott informed David Moyes, the Everton manager, on Monday that he wanted to join City and spent the evening was writing to Bill Kenwright, the chairman, to explain his motives.

It is a huge gamble by Lescott given that there were no guarantees that Kenwright will agree to let him go or that an improved bid from City will be accepted, which raises the prospect of the England defender being deemed an outcast in the event that he is kept at Goodison Park against his wishes.

City are expected to make a third and final offer of up to £22 million and remain optimistic that an agreement will be reached, believing that Everton will not want to keep a player who does not want to play for them, but that fee still falls well short of Everton’s £30 million valuation.

Everton fans are notoriously unforgiving and are likely to view Lescott’s decision as an act of betrayal similar to that in which Wayne Rooney, the England forward, submitted a transfer request to help to pave the way for his move to Manchester United in August 2004. Lescott was not due to feature in the pre-season friendly match against Blackpool at Bloomfield Road this evening because of the hip injury that had ruled him out of the 2-2 draw with Coventry City on Sunday, although that is probably just as well given the strong reaction his decision is likely to trigger among supporters at the game, who are likely to be angry at the news.

If a deal cannot be struck between the two clubs, City will turn their attention to Sébastien Bassong, the Newcastle United defender who is out of contract in two years’ time and Sylvain Distin, the former City defender, now at Portsmouth. Alex, the Chelsea defender, is a distant third alternative.

The news is an untimely blow for Everton, coming only 12 days before the start of the new season, and not the only bit of bad news for Moyes, who doubts whether he will have Marouane Fellaini fit for their opening Barclays Premier League game at home to Arsenal because of a debilitating virus.

The Belgium midfield player lost half a stone after picking up the infection that found its way into his bloodstream during his summer holiday and although he has featured in four of Everton’s five pre-season fixtures, the club’s record £15 million signing from Standard Liège has failed to put the weight back on.

Everton can ill afford to lose another key member of their squad. Mikel Arteta, the midfield player, and Yakubu Ayegbeni and Victor Anichebe, the strikers, are still several weeks from returning, while Phil Jagielka, the defender, is out until November with cruciate knee ligament damage. There have been no significant signings to date other than the arrival of Jô on a season-long loan from Manchester City.

Despite being 6ft 5in tall, Fellaini has dropped to well under 13 stone and Moyes is worried about how much weaker he looks despite being put on a programme to bulk him up.

“He’s lost quite a lot of weight and it’s noticeable how thin he has become,” Moyes said. “He wasn’t a boy that could afford to lose any weight. It is going to take a little while I feel for him to get his full strength back.

“He has not been right all through pre-season and he is still not right. When you are the shape and build he is, when you lose weight it’s not all that easy to put it back on.

“Since he has come back we’ve been trying to get him built up but the weight is not going back on at the moment.”

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