Manchester City: acquired Khusanov from Lens for 40 million

Manchester City has made its first purchase of a January transfer window in which it expects to be an unusually protagonist: Abdukodir Khusanov, the 20-year-old Uzbek defender from Lens. The League 1 club receives 40 million euros plus bonuses, the player will sign a contract until 2029 with the club’s option for a further season. All that’s missing to give Guardiola a player who will immediately join the first team is the official announcement.

the deal

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City have moved quickly for a player who has entered the radar of many European clubs. To convince Lens, 7th in the table, to sell him immediately, an important offer was needed, and the 4-time reigning English champions decided to skip the preliminaries, presenting an important offer which convinced the club to sell. Finding an agreement with Khusanov was easy: the idea of ​​playing in the Premier League was too intriguing for Guardiola to refuse. He will arrive in Manchester without speaking English or French, with the nickname “monster” and the idea that he can immediately help City’s defense, which has lost confidence in the two months of crisis. “In training I avoid playing against him. I imagine that doing it for 90 minutes is very complicated…” Adrien Thomasson, his teammate at Lens, said of him.

strategy

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Khusanov, in City’s ideas, is only the first purchase of a January which must serve to begin that restyling around Guardiola and Haaland which is destined to continue into the summer. The next name on the list is Omar Marmoush, a 25-year-old Egyptian striker from Eintracht Frankfurt who has scored 13 goals in 15 games in the Bundesliga so far. To sign him you need at least 80 million euros, an offer that Eintracht couldn’t refuse. City don’t want to waste time on him either: since Guardiola arrived in January they have spent less than 160 million euros in 7 years, if they also took Marmoush they would reach 120 million.