Manchester United remain an active player in the summer transfer market, after chief executive David Gill flew to Spain to seal the deal for Udinese winger Alexis Sanchez.
Gill hopes to wrap up a £27m transfer for football’s most wanted man within the next few days.
If United manage to sign the Chilean winger, beating out Manchester City and Barcelona, it will take manager Alex Ferguson’s summer spending to an amazing £82m.
It will come as particularly a crushing blow to City, whoy believed their massive financial clout had swayed the Chilean winger, 22.
But agent Fernando Felicevich said: “An agreement with City? Sanchez’s future is still very much wide open.
“We are working on it and, after meetings with City, we have other new appointments.”
The 19-time champions are increasingly confident of getting their man, even though £27m is about £4m more than they had originally hoped to pay.
But they have had to up the offer to beat off Barca and City.