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City would ideally like to sign a new right-back this summer
Sean McCormick Football Content Editor 05:00, 05 Aug 2025
Sean McCormick is a content editor across our North East and Yorkshire football clubs. He was previously a Newcastle United reporter, a trends writer covering both the Magpies and Sunderland AFC, as well as a football content editor at the Manchester Evening News. He also writes about darts and boxing. He joined us in 2016.
Manchester City will be happy with their summer transfer business so far.
City acted quickly and decisively early in the transfer market and have made six signings this summer to the tune of £151million and they look well set to compete on all fronts this season.
The arrival of Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolves finally filled the void at City for a natural left-back, while they have also secured the arrivals of midfielders Tijjani Reijnders from AC Milan and Rayan Cherki from Lyon.
Goalkeepers James Trafford and Marcus Bettinelli have joined from Burnley and Chelsea respectively and young midfielder Sverre Nypan has made the move from Rosenborg, although he is expected to be loaned out for the season.
They followed the January arrivals of Omar Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez, Abdukodir Khusanove, Vitor Reis and Jumah Bah and the bulk of City's remaining transfer business this summer will be working on trimming Pep Guardiola's bloated squad.
The likes of Jack Grealish, Kalvin Phillips and Stefan Ortega are for sale, while a number of City's younger players could leave the club on loan.
But if there is one glaring weak spot in their squad it is the lack of a recognised right-back. Kyle Walker's transfer to Burnley means City's current options stretch from Matheus Nunes and Rico Lewis, both of whom prefer to play as midfielders, and central defenders Khusanov, Manuel Akanji and John Stones.
City's admiration of Newcastle and England right-back Tino Livramento has been well documented but a move this summer would be expensive and extremely unlikely.
The question for City is whether they act now to sign an alternative or take a gamble and wait until next summer given the lack of attainable options out there.
Even using DataMB's player similarity generator tool to bring up players with similar characteristics to Livramento, the only alternative that has the quality to be a City player to emerge from the five most similar players to the 22-year-old is Nottingham Forest right-back Ola Aina.
The 28-year-old has just had an excellent season at the City Ground as he helped the Reds qualify for the Europa League and while he could quite feasibly fit in at City, he has just signed a new contract in the East Midlands.
Transfermarkt rate Aina at around £19million but, like Livramento, any deal would be more realistic next summer. He may prove a viable, and cheaper alternative, then, but it also sums up the issue facing City right now.
Man City's 2025/26 Away Shirt
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Man City have launched their new away shirt for the 2025/26 season, featuring an all-black design inspired by the club's earliest-known kit.
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