Manchester City have Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez who can play up front, but Pep Guardiola isn’t blessed with depth in attack after loaning Liam Delap to Sheffield United, selling Gabriel Jesus to Arsenal and loaning Nahuel Bustos to Sao Paolo over the summer.
As a result, Pete O’Rourke of the Football Insider believes City might look to bring in a prolific forward – Noah Okafor of RB Salzburg. O’Rourke told Give Me Sport that the ‘highly-rated’ forward ‘would be an exciting’ signing for City, but there will be a lot of interest from other big clubs in Europe.
He said: “It would be a really exciting signing and he’s probably one of the most highly-rated young players in European football right now. He’s impressed at RB Salzburg, scoring goals for them and scoring goals in the Champions League as well and it’s just enhanced his reputation. He’s a top young player who will be at the World Cup Switzerland as well.
“I’m sure Man City will be keeping tabs on him. Probably a number of top European clubs as well, because I don’t expect RB Salzburg to keep hold of him for much longer. He will probably want to move to one of the bigger European leagues in the near future.”
Okafor joined Salzburg on a four-year deal from FC Basel in 2020 and has gone on to make 100 appearances in all competitions, scoring 34 goals with 20 assists. The 22-year-old has 10 goals with two assists from 22 games across the board this season, so his future does look bright.
City would love to add an attacker of Okafor’s quality to the squad, but it remains to be seen if they’ll make an official move for the Swiss international as he wouldn’t walk into the starting eleven. Okafor isn’t likely to get in over Haaland or Alvarez, so he wouldn’t be happy on the bench at City if he can play elsewhere.
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