Manchester City have agreed a £46.3m (€55m) deal with AC Milan to sign Tijjani Reijnders.
He is set to sign a five-year deal at the Etihad.
Reijnders is a Netherlands international who had the most goals and assists of any midfielder in Serie A last season.
He was a bright spark in a disappointing season for Milan, who only finished eighth in Serie A, missing out on qualification for Europe.
The 26-year-old, who joined the Italian giants from AZ Alkmaar in the summer of 2023, scored 15 goals in 2024-25 and will bolster Pep Guardiola’s midfield options following the departure of Kevin De Bruyne.
Cherki and Ait Nouri other key City targets
City are hoping to get players in before the Club World Cup – but they will not rush deals just for the sake of the tournament.
AC Milan midfielder Tijjani Reijnders
The early window for the tournament in the USA closes on Tuesday June 10. Club World Cup teams can also use an in-tournament registration period after the group stages from June 27-July 3 to add players to their squads.
City’s opening CWC game is on 18 June against Wydad Casablanca in Philadelphia.
Lyon playmaker Rayan Cherki and Wolves left-back Rayan Ait Nouri are their other key targets.
Ait Nouri effectively has two years left on his Wolves deal including a club-held option and is expected to cost at least £50m. He is in the Algeria squad for friendlies on Thursday and Tuesday.
Cherki scored 12 goals and provided 20 assists in 44 appearances for Lyon this season.
City have been keen to strengthen at full-back and in the No 10 position this summer.
Tijjani Reijnders’ role at AC Milan
‘We should have been more aggressive last summer’
Man City chairman Kaldoon Al-Mubarak said last week he believes they should have been more aggressive in the transfer market last summer.
Al-Mubarak admitted the club did not end up “anywhere near” achieving their goals in 2024/25 but said lessons have been learned as a result of their disappointing season.
Having won four of the last five Premier League titles, City were essentially out of the race by the end of November this time around and ended up without a single major trophy to their name for the first time since 2016/17, Pep Guardiola’s first season in charge.
Rayan Ait Nouri is one of City’s targets
In his annual post-season interview, he told the club website: “There’s been a lot of challenges that we’ve, I’ve never dealt with personally, professionally, over these last 17 years combined.
“And the culmination of that is an experience that I believe will be invaluable for us going forward.
“This year is another year where I think when I look back, last summer, we probably should have been more aggressive in some of the changes we needed to do.
“We didn’t do that and that ended up costing us this year. We already started that rebuild of this team in January.
“Normally we like to do our business in the summer and only in case of emergency, a special need that comes up, do we actually go and do business in January.
“That’s been our MO at least for the last seven or eight years. But this January, we had to act.”
Reijnders could be key part of Man City rebuilt midfield
With Man City signing Reijnders from AC Milan, Adam Bate examines what the Dutchman will bring to the Premier League and how he could revitalise City’s midfield, with insight from talking to the player’s former coaches…
Read the feature here.
The first of two summer transfer windows is upon us – and there is no better place than Sky Sports to get all the latest transfer news and rumours.
Use the Sky Sports app and website for all your updates in our dedicated Transfer Centre and Premier League club blogs, plus live Q&As with our reporters throughout the summer.
The Transfer Show returns to Sky Sports News from Sunday June 1 for the start of the pre-Club World Cup window and will then be on every weeknight at 5pm and 7pm until the deadline on Tuesday June 10.
The summer transfer window will open again on Monday June 16 until Monday September 1 – with the deadline brought forward to 7pm this year.
