Man City close in on Erling Haaland transfer as Fernandinho backs future academy prospects

Here are your Manchester City evening headlines on Monday, May 9.

Man City set to avoid summer transfer saga as they close on Erling Haaland deal

Manchester City are expected to complete the signing of Erling Haaland without a long and contentious battle for the superstar striker.

City are one of a number of top European clubs to have been putting serious effort into signing Haaland for more than a year, and emerged this season as one of the final two options for the player alongside Real Madrid; despite hoovering up the best Bundesliga talent as part of their domination of the league, Bayern Munich have made it plain the player will not be moving there.

The Blues worked their way into pole position and are close to what would be one of the biggest deals in the club's history. What's more, with Dortmund and themselves preferring to conduct business early in the summer, the sensational transfer is set to be concluded without dragging through the summer.

Read more about Haaland here

Fernandinho backs academy players to help Man City through injury crisis

Fernandinho says Manchester City's youngsters are ready to step up in the final few games of the season to help the team through their injury crisis.

Ruben Dias became the latest defender to see his season ended when he was forced off at half-time of their Premier League win over Newcastle on Sunday. With John Stones and Kyle Walker also ruled out for the next three games, Pep Guardiola has only four senior defenders (including natural left winger Oleksandr Zinchenko) to see out the remainder of the campaign.

Fernandinho came on for Dias against Newcastle to play in the role he was asked to frequent during the 2019/20 season and he ended the match next to teenage