Aymeric Laporte to Manchester City: Pep Guardiola targets defender with £39m bid to activate release clause

Laporte has a £39m release clause in his contract and could be the second player to arrive at the Etihad Stadium after City secured the signing of Ilkay Gundogan on Thursday

Aymeric Laporte could be on his way to Manchester City this summer (Getty)

The arrival of Ilkay Gundogan will be the first of many signings at Manchester City this summer after Pep Guardiola’s transfer plans were revealed, with French defender Aymeric Laporte top of his wish list.

According to The Guardian, Guardiola wants the Athletic Bilbao centre-back as part of his defensive line-up next season and has asked the club to meet his €50m [£39m]release clause even though he is currently recovering from a broken leg and dislocated ankle.

The Independent understands that City are longstanding admirers of Laporte's, with his serious injury not enough to put off their interest in the player.

The France Under-21 international was not considered for the Euro 2016 Championship as a result of his injury, which will keep him out of action until August and means he could miss the start of the new season. But City have not been put off by this threat, and will press on with Guardiola’s desire to sign the 22-year-old this summer after identifying Laporte as a star in the making.

With doubts over Vincent Kompany’s fitness – the City defender has been ruled out of Belgium’s Euro 2016 campaign – and the evidence this season suggesting Nicolas Otamendi and Eliaquim Mangala cannot be relied upon to sustain a Premier League title challenge, Guardiola wants Laporte in order to build his future defence around.

One positive for City is that Laporte’s agents are Ivan de la Pena and Carles Puyol, the former Barcelona players who featured for the Catalans’ youth side at the same as Txiki Begiristain, City’s current sporting director, starred for the first team.

It’s believed that City will ready a contract offer for Laporte before making the bid to Bilbao, given that they are guaranteed negotiations with the player due to activating his release clause, leaving the Spanish side powerless to resist the offer.

Laporte has remained committed to Bilbao since arriving as a 16-year-old from French side Bayonne in 2010, having agreed four individual contract extensions, but he could finally be on the move this summer after being linked with Manchester United last summer.

City are also being linked with big money moves for Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos and Juventus star Paul Pogba, with Guardiola expected to bring as many as six new players into his first-team squad in a bid to improve their performances and challenge for the Premier League title after this season’s disappointment under Manuel Pellegrini.

Aymeric Laporte suffered a dislocated ankle and broken leg while playing for France Under-21s (Getty)

Guardiola will have one tough ask to achieve though given that he will be expected to at least match Pellegrini’s achievement in taking City to the Champions League semi-finals for the first time in the club’s history, with Guardiola coming off a three-year spell with Bayern Munich in which he failed to emulate his predecessor Jupp Heynckes’s feat of winning the European Cup in his final season with the German side.