Manchester City lead the race for Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz | OneFootball

Premier League champions Manchester City are believed to be leading the race for Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz at this early stage of discussions for the player.

Etihad Stadium recruitment officials are currently in the process of assessing their options as Kevin De Bruyne in particular moves closer towards the end of his career at the club following a stellar nine-season career to date.

The 33-year-old’s existing Manchester City agreement expires at the end of the ongoing season, and while there remains an intention to negotiate an extended contract between the two parties, no such conversations have yet taken place.

Despite the changeover in Director of Football at Manchester City at the end of the ongoing season, with Sporting CP’s Hugo Viana arriving to replace Txiki Begiristain, it is likely that the latter will front any negotiations.

But it may be the former that sees the challenge of replacing De Bruyne placed upon his shoulders, with one of Europe’s premier young talents emerging as Manchester City’s go-to profile for the attacking midfield role.

That is according to the information of Sky Germany’s Florian Plettenberg, who reports that Florian Wirtz is currently top of Bayern Munich’s transfer targets for the next summer transfer window, with the German giants ready to spend a ‘massive’ transfer fee.

However, the report states that from the side of Bayer Leverkusen, Manchester City are currently the club ‘showing the most serious interest’ in the 21-year-old and making the ‘strongest efforts’ to sign the player.

Unsurprisingly given the player’s outstanding quality, the report reveals Leverkusen’s ideal scenario would be to convince Wirtz to sign a new deal, but should he wish to leave the club, his club are ‘determined’ to sell abroad and want to make him their record sale.

As such, that could be a huge bonus to Manchester City’s hopes, with the Etihad’s interest ‘most concrete’, despite interest from Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United. As for Real Madrid, it is believed that Leverkusen consider a move to the Spanish club to be unrealistic.

Links to the Bayer Leverkusen superstar follow a number of high-profile links to some of the games very best operators in the attacking midfield role, a lot of which are currently excelling within the German game.

The likes of RB Leipzig’s Xavi Simons and Bayern Munich’s Jamal Musiala have both been tied to potential interest from the Etihad Stadium by German media sources, however there has been very little in the way of concrete developments.

For now, Manchester City’s conversations in the recruitment department could be more centred around the defensive midfield position, as the Premier League champions consider whether to recruit a new player in the role with Rodri ruled out for the season.