Man City ready to hijack Aston Villa move after transfer U-turn
Manchester City insisted they were not interested in Sverre Nypan in January, but appear to have changed their mind now.
Manchester City are ready to sign Norwegian prospect Sverre Nypan ahead of the next summer transfer window. The 18-year-old was wanted by Arsenal and Aston Villa were expected to sign him earlier this year, but the Blues have stormed to the front of the queue.
Nypan was seen at the Etihad watching a game in January to spark speculation of a move, but City insisted that they had no interest in signing him and that the player was merely there to watch his Norway teammate Erling Haaland, who he shares an agent with. Interest from other English clubs followed, with Villa seen as getting the closest to a deal.
However, as The Athletic report, City have now decided that they do want to sign the player and are willing to pay Rosenborg a record fee for the Norwegian league to complete a transfer when the new window opens next week. Nypan would be sent on loan for the season to develop, but considered part of City's future.
Nypan would be City's fifth signing of a busy summer, with £110m already spent on bringing Rayan Cherki, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Tijjani Reijnders and Marcus Bettinelli through the door to shake up the squad. That came on top of five arrivals earlier this year, which included 19-year-old midfielder Claudio Echeverri.
City are determined to act quickly and decisively in the market after their chairman admitted that they were not aggressive enough last summer, resulting in a poor performance on the pitch when the team could not cope as injuries piled up.
The FIFA Club World Cup will see 32 of the world's best club teams including Man City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, PSG and Bayern Munich play across 63 games from June 14-July 13.
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“We will be back. This season is a season that's now behind us," Khaldoon Al Mubarak said. "Today is a new day.
"We start working and preparing for next season. And by the way, we've been doing that since January. And we will take all the good things and the not so good things from this season and learn from it and improve from it and get better.
"I can assure you, this club will do everything possible to come back to the standards that we know we all can achieve and that we know, we will achieve. Because really, if there's one thing I'd like right now, it’s to turn that page from last season and just immediately start focusing on next season."
Hugo Viana will assume sole responsibilities as sporting director at the end of the Club World Cup with the long-serving Txiki Begiristain set to depart this summer. Viana, recruited from Sporting, arranged an early exit from the Portuguese club in order to start work at the Etihad months before the first transfer window - having already helped out in January when he was still under contract in Lisbon.
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