Man City chase £70m ace who’s “very similar to Bellingham”

It continues to be a busy January transfer window for Manchester City.

Last summer, the Sky Blues’ only noteworthy edition – aside from the return of İlkay Gündoğan – was Savinho, signed from within the City Football Group for a reported £30m.

However, following the sales of Julián Álvarez (£81.5m), João Cancelo (£21m), Liam Delap (£20m), Taylor Harwood-Bellis (£20m) and others, they recorded a profit of around £126m, so are now able to splash the cash this month.

As a result, wide-spread reports suggest that the Citizens are close to bringing in both Abdukodir Khusanov from Lens and Eintracht Frankfurt striker Omar Marmoush, but the Egyptian forward isn’t the only die Adler player they have their eye on.

Manchester City targeting midfield reinforcements

According to a report by GiveMeSport, Manchester City and Arsenal ‘are battling it out’ as the Premier League rivals seek to sign Frankfurt midfielder Hugo Larsson.

TEAMtalk reported back in November that Liverpool and Tottenham also have the 20-year-old on their radar, who, according to the same outlet, is valued at around £70m.

Larsson joined Allsvenskan champions Malmö as a 12-year-old, winning a domestic double and making 61 appearances for the Sky Blues, before joining Bundesliga club Frankfurt for a reported €9m (£8m) in May 2023.

Fair to say, he has quickly established himself as a key figure in Dino Toppmöller’s team, racking up 1,515 minutes across all competitions prior to the winterpause, starting 18 of 24 matches, scoring four goals, two of which have come in the Europa League.

Your changes have been saved

Transfer Focus

Mega money deals, controversial moves and big-name flops. This is the home of transfer news and opinion across Football FanCast.

Despite only having eight senior international caps to his name, Per Lagerström of Viaplay has claimed he is one of the “hottest” prospects in the Bundesliga.

Sticking with the theme of rave reviews, data analyst Ben Mattinson on Twitter believes Larsson is stylistically “very similar to [Jude] Bellingham”, which is certainly high praise indeed, so let’s see how the duo compare?

Hugo Larsson vs Jude Bellingham comparison
Statistics	Hugo Larsson	Jude Bellingham
Appearances	64	82
Minutes	4,059	7,035
Goals (per 90)	0.13	0.46
Assists (per 90)	0.04	0.31
Shots (per 90)	0.78	1.94
Goals – xG	+1.3	+12.1
Passes attempted (per 90)	39.53	44.74
Pass completion %	86.9%	87.4%
Tackles (per 90)	1.44	1.51
Interceptions (per 90)	1.44	0.86
Touches (per 90)	48.05	54.68
All statistics courtesy of FBref.com

Of course, Bellingham’s attacking numbers significantly outweigh those of Larsson, with the Englishman scoring 36 goals since the start of last season, compared to the Swede’s six, albeit the Real Madrid man has massively overperformed his xG, doing so by more than 12 goals, suggesting this may not be sustainable.

Where Larsson is comparable to Bellingham is when it comes to passing and out-of-possession statistics, registering very similar pass completion percentages, touches and tackles per 90, while the Frankfurt midfielder has the edge in terms of interceptions.

That last point underlines why Larsson could prove such a shrewd addition for Manchester City.

The Citizens have not been the same since Rodri ruptured his ACL in September, with Pep Guardiola calling the Spaniard “irreplaceable”, adding that no other team “plays with a central midfielder who has a Ballon d’Or”.

So far, neither Mateo Kovačić nor Gündoğan have been able to fill the void vacated by Rodri, but Larsson has all the credentials to suggest he could do just that, so his signing could spark the beleaguered champions into life.