Man City boss Pep Guardiola has reportedly set his sights on Athletic Bilbao defender Unai Nunez in a bid to address the problems in defence for his side.
City conceded just 23 goals in 38 league games last season as they won the Premier League title.
SEE MORE: Video: ‘How is he the best manager in the world?’ – Merson on Man City boss Pep Guardiola
They lost influential skipper Vincent Kompany last summer, while Aymeric Laporte has missed a significant part of this campaign due to injury.
With that in mind, they’ve conceded 29 goals already this season with 13 games still to go, and so it’s clear where their major problem lies.
As reported by the Daily Mail, Guardiola has lined up Nunez as a possible solution to that issue but he has a £30m release clause in his current contract and so the 23-year-old certainly won’t be cheap as it’s noted it could take activating that clause to seal a deal.
It remains to be seen if Guardiola and City are entirely convinced that he’s the man to fill that void and make a bid, or if they consider their options and scout the market ahead of the summer transfer window.
One thing that seems relatively certain is that they can’t continue to play Fernandinho out of position at the back and the likes of John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi haven’t been consistent or reliable enough to suggest that they’re the long-term solution next to Laporte.
Nunez is also wanted by Bayern Munich, Inter and Barcelona according to the report above, and so that tells a story in itself about how highly-rated the centre-half is.
The Spaniard has made 12 appearances so far this season, helping Bilbao to sit in ninth place in the La Liga table having conceded just 17 goals in 22 games, while they’ve advanced to the last four of the Copa del Rey after their win over Barcelona in midweek.