City Xtra
·17 December 2024
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Yahoo sportsCity Xtra
·17 December 2024
An eye-watering offer north of £100 million is being considered by Manchester City for Florian Wirtz in an attempt to get ahead in the chase for the playmaker.
The Premier League champions are eyeing up a busy January window of business as the club look to get themselves back on track across competitions following a dire run of 11 games over the last few months.
In that time, Manchester City have managed to win just one match through a 3-0 home victory against Nottingham Forest, losing a total of eight matches including defeats to Tottenham and Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium.
As such, Pep Guardiola and his players find themselves lingering outside of the UEFA Champions League’s traditional top-four places in the Premier League, and also down in 22nd in the table in Europe’s premier club competition.
Injury and fitness problems have created plenty of issues for Pep Guardiola’s squad throughout the season so far, whilst ageing legs in key areas of the team mean that Manchester City will be desperate to get to the January market to begin a much-needed 2025 refresh.
And according to the information of Manchester City insider ‘Tolmie’s Hairdoo’ on X, one source at the club has now suggested that Etihad Stadium officials may ‘try their luck’ with a sensational £100 million-plus offer for Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz.
It is stressed that the attempt would be for City to try and beat Bayern Munich’s firm intention to buy the German next summer, and the midfielder’s current club would ‘prefer’ to sell to the Premier League champions in January if it meant him not joining the Allianz Arena side.
However, unfortunately for those getting their hopes up as a direct result, the report insists that Florian Wirtz has already favoured a potential move to Vincent Kompany’s Bayern Munich in future.
Bayern Munich have reportedly ‘remained close’ to the player’s family for ‘a number of years’, although it is stated that one selling point would be becoming the successor to Kevin De Bruyne, amid a ‘growing acceptance’ that the Belgian is likely to leave in the summer of 2025.
Other names understood to be of interest to Manchester City in central areas include Newcastle United’s Bruno Guimaraes, who is being viewed as a player that can operate in both offensive and defensive roles.
When it comes to names being discussed for the role of standing in for the long-term injured Rodri, it is believed in various quarters that the likes of Atalanta’s Éderson and Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi have been spoken of in some capacity.
At present, there is some level of uncertainty as to how many players Manchester City will look to recruit in the winter transfer window, and also how much cash they are willing to put aside to invest in the squad midway through a campaign.