Manchester City linked to transfer battle with Real Madrid for Bundesliga star defender

Premier League champions Manchester City are reportedly set for a transfer battle with Real Madrid for Bayern Munich star defender Alphonso Davies.

The Canadian international’s future in Germany has been in doubt for several months now, with a number of reports both from national media and elsewhere in Europe rife with transfer interest from elsewhere.

Now, the latest reports to emerge from Spain indicate that interest from La Liga in the highly-rated left-back star could be rivalled by the reigning Champions of Europe, as they continue in their long-standing hunt for a more natural option in the left-back role.

So far this season, Pep Guardiola has often utilised Josko Gvardiol in a relatively unnatural role for the Croatian, while Nathan Ake and Sergio Gomez have also acted as capable options for Manchester City.

According to the information of Spanish newspaper AS, as translated and relayed by Sport Witness, Manchester City are part of a battle with Real Madrid for Bayern Munich’s Alphonso Davies, who is yet to decide where his future lies.

The report claims that the ‘will of the player will be key’ in deciding whether his future lies at the Allianz Arena, or elsewhere at one of Europe’s other premier clubs, with Manchester City among several Premier League sides to be monitoring the situation.

Manchester City and the left-back role has been a challenging relationship since the takeover of 2008, with the club having largely struggled to find a long-term solution following the natural departures of Gael Clichy and Aleksandar Kolarov.

Since Pep Guardiola’s arrival at the club in the summer of 2016, all of the likes of Fabian Delph, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Bernardo Silva, and Phil Foden have operated in the position, with centre-backs such as Aymeric Laporte and Manuel Akanji filling in to varying success.

Any successful pursuit of Alphonso Davies would likely represent the greatest financial investment in the role from Manchester City since their signing of Benjamin Mendy from AS Monaco in 2017.