MANCHESTER CITY NEARING DE BRUYNE DEAL

Manchester City are finally close to agreeing a deal with Wolfsburg for Kevin
De Bruyne, Goal has learned.
Reports in Germany on Wednesday evening claim the terms of the transfer
have already been agreed, but Goal understands that while the saga is close
to an end, nothing has yet been finalised.
Wednesday, however, proved to be a decisive day in the long-running
negotiations; De Bruyne's agent, Patrick De Koster, met with Wolfsburg at
their training ground and requested that the matter be resolved before
Friday, when the Bundesliga side take on Schalke at the Volkswagen Arena.
Klaus Allofs, the Wolfsburg sporting director, is also understood to have
softened his stance in the past 24 hours and will meet his City counterpart,
Txiki Begiristain, at the Champions League draw on Thursday to thrash out
terms.
City, for their part, are confident that they are close to a resolution after
weeks of talks, and are prepared to shell out around £54 million for last
season's Bundesliga player of the year.
Goal had earlier revealed that De Bruyne had been left exhausted by the
situation, enduring sleepless nights as he awaits updates from his agents.
The deal would take the Premier League leaders' summer spending past the
£150m mark, following the arrivals of Raheem Sterling, Nicolas Otamendi,
Fabian Delph and Patrick Roberts.