Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish is due to report back from holiday on Monday, which is when Man City believe he will complete a record transfer upon his return.
Grealish edged closer to a Manchester City transfer and becoming English football’s first £100million superstar after talks between Pep Guardiola’s side and Aston Villa picked up pace on Friday as the England international playmaker is one of Pep Guardiola’s two major summer transfer targets, along with Tottenham talismanic skipper Harry Kane.
And Guardiola expects to complete his signing as soon as Grealish returns from holiday and reports to training with Villa on Monday, despite the latter having offered Grealish a new contract, worth a reported £200,000 a week, in a bid to convince him to remain with his boyhood club.
Regardless, City are confident that the 25-year-old frontman’s mind is already made up that his future lies at the Etihad with a team that consistently competes for honors domestically and in the Champions League.
Talks have been ongoing over the second half of this week but sources claim that they took a significant step forward on Friday.
Villa had a supposedly magical £100m figure in mind as the level at which they would be keen to do business. The figure would represent a 25 per cent increase on the current record deal for a transfer between English clubs – the £80m Manchester United paid Leicester for Harry Maguire.
And it would make Grealish comfortably the most expensive signing ever made by a Premier League club, eclipsing the £89 million Manchester United spent on Paul Pogba.
Talks this week have centred around the structure of the transfer fee and how City will be paying it as – contrary to the potential blockbuster deal for Kane where it is believed that City are prepared to package even first team players like Bernardo Silva – Grealish’s transfer has always been viewed as a purely financial deal.
His departure will be a devastating, if not entirely unexpected, blow to Villa who enjoyed a strong showing in the Premier League last season.
But, having left the offer of a £200,000 deal behind at Villa Park, Grealish can expect a contract far in excess of that, one closer to what Kevin De Bruyne earns as City’s currently highest-paid star on a deal he signed last season worth a reported £385,000 a week.