Manchester City Spends €500M on Defenses

Manchester City has worked hard to strengthen their defense. The latest acquisition of the club is Manuel Akanji. Swiss international who has defended the jersey of his national team 41 times.

Pep had to make a last-minute move for the player as he needed to solve the situation of injured Aymeric Laporte and Nathan Aké, who has injury problems.

Akanji joined Borussia Dortmund in 2018 for €21m and was a regular part of the first team, with 119 appearances for the club in all competitions and scoring four goals.

But the arrival of Niklas Sule from Bayern Munich and Nico Schlotterbeck from Freiburg this season has prompted the player to look for a way out.

“I knew last year when I was at Borussia Dortmund that I wanted to take the next step in my career,” he said.

“I wanted to improve. Now moving here to Manchester City under Pep Guardiola, it can’t get any better than that.”

“The combination of coach and club is perfect for me.

“I am really looking forward to working with him, the rest of the coaching staff, and my teammates,” Akanji said.

According to English media reports, Manchester City has disbursed just over 17 and a half million euros to finalize the transfer.

With this transaction, the citizens have spent almost 500 million euros on defenses since Pep Guardiola took charge of the team in 2016.

So far, Rúben Dias is the most expensive signing. The Portuguese arrived in the 2020/21 season for more than 70 million euros.

Manuel Akanji is the fifth signing for Pep Guardiola’s team this summer, and he arrives to shore up a defense that Sergio Gómez, from Anderlecht, has also joined this summer.

The cost of the sky-blue during the summer market is around 140 million euros, and no more movements are expected during the last hours of the transfer sale.