Sergio Agüero set to join Manchester City after talks breakthrough

Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2011 by theguardian.com

• Manchester City close on £38m deal for Argentinian
• Chairman involved directly in negotiations with Atlético Madrid

Sergio Agüero set to join Manchester City after talks breakthrough
Sergio Agüero will become the most expensive player in Manchester City's history when his move is completed.

Sergio Agüero will fly into England on Wednesday to become Manchester City's showpiece signing of the summer after a significant breakthrough in the talks with Atlético Madrid.

A provisional deal has now been arranged with the Argentina international after the club's chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, took the unusual step of becoming involved in the negotiations with Atlético. Agüero would cost in the region of £38m, making him the most expensive player in City's history and second only to Fernando Torres in the Premier League. He has signalled that he is keen on the move.

If everything goes according to plan, Agüero would become City's third signing of the summer following the arrival of Gaël Clichy from Arsenal and Stefan Savic from Partizan Belgrade. Agüero is rated as one of the most devastating strikers in Europe and his signing would also go a long way to appeasing the City manager, Roberto Mancini, who expressed his frustration last week about the club's inability to complete their transfer business earlier in the summer.

City have been operating under new transfer constraints because of Uefa's financial fair-play guidelines but the club are relaxed about breaking their transfer record for the second time under the ownership of the Abu Dhabi United Group and have pressed ahead with the transfer despite the breakdown of Carlos Tevez's proposed move to Corinthians.

Tevez is due to return to City on 4 August, unless his representatives can drum up interest elsewhere, and is discovering that there are not many clubs with the financial means to afford a player with a transfer fee in excess of £40m and a weekly salary of more than £250,000. If that remains the case, Mancini could begin the season with Tevez, Agüero, Edin Dzeko and Mario Balotelli as his front players.

City's priority would then switch back to moving on some more of their fringe players but they also intend to put together a financial package they hope would persuade Arsenal to relent over their insistence that Samir Nasri, also wanted by Manchester United, is not for sale, despite being in the final year of his contract.