Morgan Gibbs-White, £100m man - five Man City transfer options to succeed Kevin De Bruyne

Now the dust has settled on the bombshell announcement that Kevin De Bruyne will leave Manchester City in the summer, attention has turned to what might come next.

While De Bruyne will have options across the globe, in Manchester the focus will be on replacing him in the City squad. Phil Foden offers an in-house solution while Jack Grealish would love the opportunity to play centrally more regularly should he remain at the Etihad long-term.

But the expectation is City will dip into the market this summer to find an attacking midfield capable of forming part of the squad rebuild. De Bruyne departs as one of City's greatest ever players, here's five who could take on the mantle.

Gibbs-White is flying high this season, helping Nottingham Forest to an FA Cup semi-final and currently sitting third in the Premier League.

He’s a technically gifted player in that number 10 role, and his ability to combine with teammates is impressive. While there’s no question about Gibbs-White’s work rate and contribution to Nuno Espirito Santo’s team, he has a relatively low tally of five goals and nine assists in 26 matches.

He joined Forest from Wolves in 2022 for £42.5 million and his current contract expires in 2027. He is a proven Premier League player and England international, meaning he won't come cheap.

Instrumental to Bayern Leverkusen’s historic title last year, Wirtz is a goal and assist machine who deservedly won the 2023/24 Bundesliga player of the season.

Wirtz shares many of De Bruyne’s star qualities with the capacity to visualise and create killer passes, with a high technical ability. He’s also more than capable of scoring from range, something which City fans have become accustom to seeing from De Bruyne over the past