Manchester City close to reaching agreement to sign Borussia Dortmund’s Manuel Akanji

Premier League side Manchester City are close to reaching an agreement with Borussia Dortmund to sign Swiss central-defender Manuel Akanji (27).

As reported exclusively by The Athletic, there’s optimism that an agreement will be reached to sign Akanji for around €17.5m. The Switzerland international, who has entered the final year of his contract, is yet to feature for BVB this season and doesn’t feature in the plans of Edin Terzić.

Patrick Berger of Sport1 further reports that Akanji will sign a five-year contract until 2027 and will receive a reported salary of €11m.

As reported earlier this month, Juventus had shown interest in signing Akanji as a replacement for Matthijs de Ligt, who joined Bayern Munich, whilst Inter had also identified the Swiss defender as a candidate to replace Milan Škriniar, should the Slovakian join PSG before Thursday’s deadline.

However, Akanji deterred clubs due to his salary demands. Per Sport1, the former FC Basel defender wanted around €13m, a steep figure given the financial climate, and has a preference to play Champions League football.

Manchester United was also an option but following their signing of Lisandro Martinez from Ajax, Erik ten Hag’s preference was to then strengthen their attack. MUFC today confirmed that they have reached an agreement to sign Antony (22) for a reported €100m.

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