Manchester City will look to replace Nathan Ake if he ends up completing a transfer back to his former club Chelsea.
Writing in his exclusive column on CaughtOffside’s Substack, Fabrizio Romano has explained that Man City will “100%” be in the market for a new defender if a deal can be agreed for Ake to move to Stamford Bridge.
Still, Chelsea are yet to reach an agreement with City over the signing of Ake, with the Premier League champions holding out for as much as £45million to let the Netherlands international go.
Romano has the latest on the potential Ake deal, with the Dutchman agreeing personal terms with the west London giants.
“City have communicated to Chelsea that they want almost £40-45m for Ake, the same amount they invested to sign him from Bournemouth in summer 2020. Negotiations are proceeding, there is an agreement between Ake and Chelsea on personal terms but not yet between the two clubs,” Romano writes.
“Man City will 100% sign a new centre-back should Ake leave, but it all depends on the Netherlands international. We’ll have to see if Chelsea are prepared to pay that much money for someone they let go as a youngster.”
It remains to be seen who City could target to come in at the back, but there have been murmurings of interest in Sevilla defender Jules Kounde, as per Mike McGrath in the tweet below:
#MCFC to weigh up whether Ake is replaced, which could bring into play likes of Pau Torres, Jules Koundé or Joško Gvardiol. Koulibaly on market but City and Napoli have not done deals in recent windows https://t.co/7tkH6apYzD
— Mike McGrath (@mcgrathmike) July 8, 2022
Ake hasn’t quite made the desired impact during his time at City, but he’s shown he can be a top performer in the Premier League and has it in him to help Chelsea recover from losing both Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen this summer.
Great for the club