Manchester City to unveil two new signings within the next 24 hours but debuts will have to wait.
Premier League champions Manchester City are set to unveil two new signings into Pep Guardiola’s squad across the next 24 hours, it has been reported.
Txiki Begiristain and his recruitment colleagues, including the club’s next director of football Hugo Viana, have been hard at work this month negotiating and finalising a number of deals to strengthen Pep Guardiola’s playing squad.
The relatively unusual nature of Manchester City’s winter market business has largely come about as a result of a hugely challenging first-half to the season, with injury and fitness concerns plaguing Guardiola’s options throughout the squad.
The City boss recently admitted that he personally blocked the idea of a rebuild taking place last summer, believing that the players available to him with the additions of Savinho and Ilkay Gundogan were enough to compete once more.
However, following such problems, a planned rebuild in the summer market of 2025 has been brought forward, and two new arrivals are expected to be formally unveiled imminently, with a third to come later this week, should all go to plan.
That is according to the information of the Manchester Evening News’ Simon Bajkowski, who states that both Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis are expected to be formally announced by Manchester City as new signings ‘in the next 24 hours’.
It is further reiterated following previous reports that the defensive duo will immediately join Pep Guardiola’s first-team squad for the second-half of the ongoing season, however they are set to wait for their first opportunity of a debut.
As per UEFA competition rules, the pair are not able to be added to Manchester City’s squad for the first phase of the ongoing Champions League, as such their first opportunity to be available for selection will be against Chelsea on Saturday evening.
Pep Guardiola and his City squad are due to travel to the French capital on Tuesday evening ahead of their matchday seven clash with Paris Saint-Germain 24 hours later, in a must-win affair for the 2023 winners of the competition.
After disappointing outings against the likes of Sporting CP, Juventus, and Feyenoord in previous matchdays of this season’s league phase, City find themselves in a position where they must win their final two matches to secure themselves a play-off place for the last-16.
After meeting Paris Saint-Germain in France this week, City’s clash with Chelsea in the Premier League will then be followed up by another European clash as Manchester City welcome Club Brugge to the Etihad Stadium on the final matchday of the league phase.
