Manchester City\u2019s summer midfield overhaul has taken on even greater significance after the club stepped up its pursuit of Ayyoub Bouaddi, only six days after Elliot Anderson arrived as their record signing.<\/p>\n
Bouaddi, a 17-year-old considered one of the breakout names from the World Cup, is now firmly on City\u2019s radar. Lille value him at $113.8 million (\u20ac100 million, \u00a385.7 million), and that figure would take City\u2019s midfield outlay this summer to close to \u20ac270 million when added to the $154.1 million (\u00a3116 million) spent on Anderson.<\/p>\n
Reports in France indicate that City are pushing ahead on two fronts, speaking with both Lille and the player\u2019s representatives. RMC Sport say the negotiations over a transfer fee have become “particularly intense\u201d and that City hold a \u201csignificant advantage\u201d over rival clubs.<\/p>\n
Fabrizio Romano has also described City as increasingly confident that an agreement can be reached in the coming days. Even so, there remains one unresolved detail: whether Bouaddi would move to the Etihad Stadium immediately or stay with Lille for the 2026\u201327 season.<\/p>\n
If Bouaddi does arrive straight away, he would effectively fill the space left by Rodri, who is now the subject of club-to-club talks between Manchester City and Real Madrid.<\/p>\n
Madrid were initially reluctant to pursue the 2024 Ballon d\u2019Or winner. But after his Golden Ball-winning World Cup, and despite the fact he is currently sidelined after back surgery, an approach from Madrid is now underway.<\/p>\n
The timing of Bouaddi\u2019s possible arrival may depend on how those Rodri discussions unfold. Should the teenager join City immediately, it would make the Spanish midfielder\u2019s departure easier to complete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
City\u2019s pursuit of Bouaddi and talks over Rodri could reshape the midfield before 2026\/27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}