City’s sale of Savinho to Tottenham is closing in on a £65m fee, according to Mail Sport’s Simon Jones — a rise on the £60m figure first reported last week — with a medical understood to be imminent.
The Brazilian managed just one Premier League goal for City in 24 appearances last season, and an Instagram story showing a suitcase this week only intensified expectation that his two-year spell at the Etihad is ending.
What’s changed is the pace at which City have moved to address the gap. Rather than waiting for the Savinho deal to complete before shopping for a replacement, Enzo Maresca and director of football Hugo Viana are already working on it.
Ibrahim Mbaye, the 18-year-old PSG winger who impressed for Senegal at this summer’s World Cup, has emerged as City’s leading target — though Tottenham themselves, along with Aston Villa and RB Leipzig, are also credited with interest in the teenager.
There’s a wider pattern here worth flagging for City fans.
This is the second time this summer Spurs have moved for a player City wanted to keep hold of, or had earmarked, after beating Viana’s side to Sandro Tonali’s signature from Newcastle earlier in the window.
Whether that’s coincidence or a sign of Spurs’ more aggressive recruitment approach under Roberto De Zerbi, it’s a trend City’s hierarchy will be conscious of as the summer progresses.
For now, the priority is clear: getting a decent fee for a player who never quite delivered on his early promise, and moving fast enough in the market that his exit doesn’t leave Maresca short of options out wide as pre-season intensifies.
