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Manchester City are readying a bid in the region of £60 million for Wolfsburg’s Kevin de Bruyne, according to The Mirror. The two-time Premier League champions have been pursuing the former Chelsea player for quite some time but are yet to make an official offer.
There is an abundance of midfielders already at the Etihad, but Manuel Pellegrini is set to continue the overhaul of his squad after a disappointing 2014/15 campaign. Edin Dzeko and Steven Jovetic are on their way out while there are have been a few notable additions to the squad.
City have kicked on after a quiet response at the start of the transfer window. Reports earlier in the month had suggested that the Sky Blues would be stepping up their pursuit of De Bruyne after completing the signing of Raheem Sterling from Liverpool.
Instead, they have been focussing on recruiting more English talents till now – an area in which they have been lacking in numbers – with the signings of Fabian Delph from Aston Villa and Patrick Roberts from Fulham.
De Bruyne could be offered £200K per week in wages
Talks of the proposed move of De Bruyne have however gathered pace in the past couple of days with the Mirror reporting that the English club will be offering the Belgium international a five-year contract worth £200,000 a week.
The above terms eclipse £150,000 a week salary offered by the German club as they look to tie De Bruyne to a new contract, one which he has been unwilling to sign. Wolfsburg sporting director Klaus Allofs has also hinted that they could be left helpless if a big-money offer came their way.
Speaking to German media house Sport1, Allofs said: "We do not do business games. What if, someone comes with so much amount of money? That has not happened (so far), but we have to worry about it.”
“If such an offer does come, we will have to deal with it seriously, solely with our respect and commitment to the players. However due to the sporting ambitions of VfL (Wolfsburg) it is forbidden to express it,” Aloffs added.
De Bruyne moved to Germany in January 2014 after an unhappy spell at Chelsea and took the Bundesliga by storm in his first full season. He scored 15 goals and set up 21 more, a record in the German top tier, to help the Volkswagen backed club to finish second in the 2014/15 Bundesliga campaign and thus qualify for this season’s UEFA Champions League.
