Man City set on signing striker in summer window as Julian Alvarez impresses

19.02.2022 - 01:59 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Manchester City still plan to sign a marquee striker in the summer transfer window, with Erling Haaland their top target.

The Blues splashed out £14m on River Plate striker Julian Alvarez in January, with the 22-year-old hoping to spend pre-season with the first team and force his way into Pep Guardiola's squad for next season.

A hat-trick he scored this week at River, where he will stay until at least the end of the English domestic season, had City great Sergio Aguero excited and also led to Guardiola comparing his movement to Leicester frontman Jamie Vardy.

While Alvarez has the opportunity to show that he can be a part of the set-up at the Etihad next season, City still intend to sign a striker to belatedly replace Aguero after failing to do so last summer when they went after Harry Kane following Dortmund's clear stance that Haaland was not for sale.

Real Madrid are City's biggest competition for Haaland, but the Blues expect to be firmly in the fight to land one of the most exciting players in world football.

City's chairman spoke last summer about the need to keep improving the squad from a position of strength rather than winning leading to complacency, and Guardiola knows the efforts the club are going to to do that.

"The club is working, watching managers, keepers, full-backs, central defenders, attacking midfielders, strikers," he said. "It never stops. If you believe now we have a settled team and then five players say they want to leave, we have to be ready.

"Julian scored three goals in the last game for River Plate and I think Man City made an incredible deal because he is a player who moves really well, the goals he scored were like Vardy's movement. I think next pre-season he will be at Man City with