Manchester City establish initial contacts with 25-year-old Brazilian midfielder | OneFootball

Recruitment officials at Manchester City have reportedly established ‘initial contacts’ with the representatives of Galatasaray’s Gabriel Sara.

It is the newest name to be linked with interest from the Etihad Stadium as incoming sporting director Hugo Viana begins work full-time at the City Football Academy ahead of taking on the aforementioned role from the upcoming summer.

The Portuguese official, who brought in a new-found wave of success at Sporting CP through his recruitment alongside the now-Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim, was chosen by City as the successor to Txiki Begiristain.

The long-standing director of football at the Etihad Stadium will be stepping aside from the position after 12 seasons at the club and played a role in selecting his successor, with plenty of work to do in the coming summer off the back of a challenging season for the club.

And with a lot of work to be done in the recruitment department as well as making assessments on the immediate-term futures of players within the existing first-team squad, the midfield department appears to be taking on the most work.

Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz will no doubt maintain his place as the most common name linked with Manchester City for several more weeks as the search for Kevin De Bruyne’s replacement remains ongoing, although a new name has now emerged.

According to the information of FootMercato’s Santi Aouna, Manchester City have identified Galatasaray midfielder Gabriel Sara as one of their top targets for the upcoming summer transfer window.

It is claimed that initial contacts have also been established between the entourage of the 25-year-old and Manchester City, with the Brazilian star ‘very popular internally’ at the Etihad Stadium with regards to ‘strengthening their attacking rotation’.

Sara has already ventured into English football once before in his professional playing career having played out a successful two-season spell with Norwich City in the Championship, joining the club from Sao Paulo in a £6 million agreement plus add-ons in 2022.

Following a successful debut season, Sara claimed Norwich’s Barry Butler Memorial Trophy for Player of the Season, before two assists and a goal in the first month of his second campaign at the club saw him rewarded with the EFL Championship Player of the Month Award for August.

The Brazilian would later go on to be a crucial part of Norwich’s bid for a play-off spot, named in the EFL Championship Team of the Season for the 2023/24 campaign before sealing a move to Galatasaray in August 2024 in a reported €18 million deal.