The prospect of Florian Wirtz donning a Manchester City shirt is one that would likely spark envy from all the rest of the teams in the Premier League.
Manchester City have approached Wirtz to sign him, earmarking the Bayer Leverkusen midfielder as the heir to Kevin De Bruyne — whose contract expires in the summer.
Florian Wirtz is one of the best attacking midfielders in Europe and one who fits the bill for City as they aim to rebuild their squad.
Pep Guardiola’s men must overhaul their roster as they have an ageing squad, with De Bruyne (33), Ilkay Gundogan (34), Bernardo Silva (30), Nathan Ake (30), John Stones (30) and Mateo Kovacic all aged 30 or above.
Wirtz, on the other is just 21 and is the type of superstar signing who could propel this Manchester City side from being in the race for top four in the Premier League this season to title contenders in the following campaign.
| Position | Team | Played MP | Won W | Drawn D | Lost L | For GF | Against GA | Diff GD | Points Pts |
| 4 |  Man CityManchester City | 25 | 13 | 5 | 7 | 52 | 35 | 17 | 44 |
Man City plan to pair Florian Wirtz and Phil Foden as attacking midfielders
However, the question that City supporters will be posing is how Pep Guardiola intends to fit Wirtz into his side if they manage to secure his services.
The Premier League champions have plenty of players who already operate in central areas such as De Bruyne, Phil Foden, Omar Marmoush and James McAtee while winger Oscar Bobb is a natural number 10 as well. Claudio Echeverri, who is heading to Manchester City and youngster Divine Mukasa are also attacking midfielders.
Manchester City have a plan in place, however as their vision is to pair Wirtz up with Foden in the same way Germany boss Julian Nagelsmann has managed to do so alongside Jamal Musiala — as per the Daily Mail. In the German national team, the Leverkusen poster-boy and Musiala are allowed to play centrally despite starting as wingers due to Maximilian Mittelstadt and Joshua Kimmich providing the width on either flank.
Furthermore, one of the reasons why Wirtz has caught City’s eye is not only because he could replace the potentially outgoing De Bruyne, who San Diego FC could sign but also due to Pep Guardiola’s desire to reduce his squad’s average age.
| FLORIAN WIRTZ: 2024/2025 SEASON | ||
| STARTS | GOALS | ASSISTS |
| 28 | 15 | 12 |
But the report mentions that Manchester City’s pursuit to sign the youngster, who is valued at a lofty £85 million is set to be met by competition from Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
As things stand, Wirtz has just two years left on his current contract at Bayer Leverkusen, prompting some of Europe’s biggest clubs to take a stab at prising him away from Xabi Alonso’s side.
Florian Wirtz wants to sign for Real Madrid
The Sun have revealed that despite Manchester City’s interest in the silky technician, his preference is to sign for Real Madrid.
The potential addition of Wirtz would further strengthen a Los Blancos side that already have attack-minded midfielders such as Jude Bellingham, Arda Guler and Brahim Diaz on their books.
From Manchester City’s point of view, perhaps their selling point to the German could be that if De Bruyne does leave the Etihad Stadium in the summer, he could become an instant starter for them — which might not be the case at Real Madrid.
But the English giants have every reason to be concerned about their chances of signing Wirtz.
In the past, Manchester City were gutted about Bellingham’s rejection of their proposal as he decided to sign for Real Madrid.
Whether Wirtz follows in the Champions League winner’s footsteps will be fascinating to discover as the highly-rated attacker could be primed to take the biggest step in his career.
