Man City ready to unleash £33.5million signing as transfer plan clear
Manchester City will complete their first transfer of the January window when the arrival of Abdukodir Khusanov is rubber-stamped.
A deal with Lens for the centre back has been agreed with a fee of £33.5m plus add-ons set to bring the 20-year-old to the Etihad. It will cap a remarkable rise for the Uzbekistan international, who only joined the French club 18 months ago for around £100,000 from Energetik-BGU in Belarus.
City are keen to bolster their ranks amid a string of injury issues this season and Khusanov will offer vital options in the backline. He will go straight into Pep Guardiola's senior squad and compete for a place in the starting XI.
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In an ideal world City would like to bed Khusanov in slowly but he could be thrown into Premier League action sooner rather than later. He has demonstrated his ability in the French top flight with Lens the meanest defence in the country.
He would slot into the City side as a right-sided centre-back and his experience of playing predominantly in a three for Lens will help him at the Etihad given that Rico Lewis often inverts to leave City with a back three.
He's a tenacious tackler who reads the game well, while his size and strength are other attributes. His pace could be exposed in a high line but positionally he has the intelligence to combat that weakness.
He is capable on the ball and a towering presence in the backline, offering City some added physicality.
John Stones, Ruben Dias, Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji would all be ahead of the 20-year-old in the pecking order but adding another talent to the ranks provides Guardiola with greater options amid the possibility of Akanji or Stones filling a midfield role in the second half of the campaign given Rodri's absence.
The 20-year-old is expected to sign a four-and-a-half-year contract at the Etihad with the option of a further 12 months.
