Manchester City and Chelsea have agreed a £47.5m deal that will see Raheem Sterling join City's Premier League rivals, and Nathan Ake could soon follow him.
Chelsea are targeting the City centre-back as Thomas Tuchel looks to rebuild his defence after a number of summer departures. Ake is understood to be keen to return to his former club and has even agreed personal terms, but City holding out for an offer they deem to be suitable.
City signed Ake from Bournemouth just two years ago, but in his two seasons at the Etihad the Dutch defender has failed to establish himself as a regular starter with Guardiola preferring to play Ruben Dias, John Stones and Aymeric Laporte. The fact that Ake has another three years left on his current contract means City will be keen to recoup — if not turn a profit on — the £41m they paid for him in 2020.
READ MORE: Raheem Sterling to Chelsea set for confirmation after Man City agree fee
In addition to that, City will not consider letting Ake leave unless they are confident of bringing someone in to replace him. Given the injury issues City's defence suffered from last season, Guardiola will not be keen on chasing Premier League and Champions League glory with just three senior centre-backs.
Therein lies the biggest hurdle standing in the way of a potential deal: How do City get a top-quality central defender to join without being able to promise that they will be anything better than fourth choice? The answer is they probably don't.
The likes of Joules Kounde, Josko Gvardiol and Mohammed Salisu have all been linked with the Etihad, but all are young, talented players who will want to play as many minutes as possible to continue their development. It will be tough to sell them the prospect of playing just 20 to 25 games per season.
This is new territory for City in the sense that they rarely have to go out and sign a fourth choice centre-back. What normally happens is that a new star defender is brought in, bumping his teammates down the pecking order.
In recent seasons Eliaquim Mangala, Nicolas Otamendi, Eric Garcia and Ake have all been fourth-string — with varying degrees of success it must be said — but none were signed for that role.
Mangala was meant to be the signing of the summer in 2014, but we all know how his City career went after his impressive debut against Chelsea. Otamendi faired better, but by 2019/20 he had become a liability. Garcia was a young player making the step up from the academy, while Ake was unfortunate that City went out and signed Dias two months after he arrived. None were intended to be fourth choice.
The most obvious solutions are as follows: sign an experienced veteran centre-back who is still good enough to play at the top level, but is willing to forge regular minutes for the chance to play for City; convince someone like a Kounde or a Salisu to join by offering hefty wages; promote 18-year-old Luke Mbete to fourth choice, and just hope that he doesn't have to be thrown into the deep end too often.
Should Chelsea make an offer for Ake that is too good to refuse, then City will face a tricky situation — one they have no previous experience of navigating.
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