Jack Grealish edged closer to Manchester City and becoming English football’s first £100million superstar after talks between Pep Guardiola’s side and Aston Villa gained pace on Friday.
The England international playmaker was one of City’s two major summer transfer targets, along with Tottenham’s Harry Kane.
And Guardiola expects to complete his signing as soon as Grealish returns from holiday and reports to training with Villa on Monday.
Villa have offered Grealish a new contract, worth a reported £200,000 a week, in a bid to convince him to remain with his boyhood club.
But City are confident that the 25-year-old has already made up his mind that his future lies at the Etihad with a team that consistently competes for honours at home and in the Champions League.
Talks have been ongoing over the second half of this week but sources claim that they took a significant step forward on Friday.
Villa had a “magic” £100m figure in mind as the level at which they would be obliged to do business, given the size of that sum.
It would represent a 25 per cent increase on the current record deal for a transfer between English clubs: the £80m Manchester United paid Leicester for Harry Maguire.
And it would make Grealish comfortably the most expensive signing ever made by a Premier League club, eclipsing the £89 million United spent on Paul Pogba.
Talks this week have centred around the structure of the transfer fee and how City will pay it.
Interestingly, while it is believed that City are prepared to package players – including first team star Bernardo Silva – in a potential blockbuster deal for Kane, Grealish’s transfer has always been viewed as a purely financial deal.
His departure will be a devastating, if not entirely unexpected, blow to Villa who enjoyed a strong showing in the Premier League last season.
But, having left the offer of a £200,000 deal behind at Villa Park, Grealish can expect a contract far in excess of that. Kevin De Bruyne is currently City’s highest-paid star on a deal he signed last season worth a reported £385,000 a week.
Given that City won the title by 12 points last season, his signing will come as a sobering development for their title rivals.
And, once they have secured the signing of Grealish, City will turn their attention to honing in on Kane and trying to agree a deal with Spurs owner Daniel Levy.
City will hope to package Silva in any transfer although it is believed the Portuguese star favours a move to Spain where he has been linked with Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
Levy maintains that Kane is not for sale but his reputation for playing “hard ball” in transfer deals means that many view Spurs’ pronouncements as simply a bargaining position.
As has been the case with Grealish, City hope Kane’s return to training with Spurs will expedite the process of completing the move.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3j3VX4g
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