The widely reported transfer of Swansea City striker Wilfried Bony to Manchester City appears to be gathering pace.
Bony will not be available until Ivory Coast exits the African Cup of Nations and Bony has already left the Swansea squad to link up with his potential Manchester City team-mate Yaya Toure who left City on January 5 last week.
A deal worth between up to £28m subject to success could be agreed subject to medical and clearance with the 26 year old Ivory Coast striker set to earn £100k a week on a 4.5 year deal.
Any deal will be subject to UEFA financial fair play, however, and City will be under pressure to balance the books by selling players between now and the summer transfer window.
In effect, City will have until the end of the summer transfer window to divest themselves of players such as Scott Sinclair and Matija Nastasic for sums of money which will balance out the reported £49m net spend limit imposed on City this season.
City have already spent around £32m net with cash being paid for Fernando (£12m, from Porto), Willy Caballero (£6m, Malaga), and Eliaquim Mangala (£32, Porto), and Bruno Zuculini (Racing Club, £3m).
One thing will be for certain if Bony arrives during the current transfer window and that will be the requirement for City manager Manuel Pellegrini to leave out a foreign player from City’s reduced Champions League squad allocation of 16 overseas players which will need to be submitted in February for the knockout phase of this year’s tournament.
Pellegrini has until 11pm UK time on February 3 2015 to make a maximum of three changes to City’s Champions League squad.