Manchester City are in advanced talks with Lille over a move for Morocco international midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi, with a deal expected this week.
The Premier League club are pushing to conclude the transfer after agreeing to sell Rodri to Barcelona for £65m in the coming days.
Lille value the 18-year-old at 100 million euros, the equivalent of approximately £85.6m, making him one of the most expensive teenagers in football history.
City have also not given up hope of signing Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez, BBC Sport has been told, keeping a second major midfield move alive.
Should both deals go through, it would complete a trio of significant midfield signings following Elliot Anderson’s arrival from Nottingham Forest earlier this summer.
Bouaddi turned heads at this summer’s World Cup, starting five of Morocco’s six matches as they progressed all the way to the quarter-finals.
His rise to prominence had already begun in 2024 when a starring performance in Lille’s Champions League victory over Real Madrid announced him on the biggest stage in club football.
The teenager functions as a deep-lying conductor and is expected to complement Anderson, who is comfortable operating as a box-to-box midfielder or in the number six role he fills for England.
Bouaddi has made 88 appearances for Lille since making his debut in October 2023, just three days after his 16th birthday, becoming the youngest player ever to represent the club.
He went on to break a record previously held by Eden Hazard after making 50 Ligue 1 appearances for Lille at just 18 years of age, with Lille finishing third in the French top flight last season.
Spain and City captain Rodri, the reigning Ballon d’Or winner, is set to sign a four-year contract at Barcelona after making 298 appearances across seven seasons at the Etihad following his £62.8m move from Atletico Madrid in 2019.
The 30-year-old missed large portions of the 2024-25 campaign with a serious knee injury before being disrupted again last season by a hamstring problem.
He returned to his best at the World Cup in the summer, leading Spain to their second global title and earning the player of the tournament award in the process.
City’s interest in Chelsea’s Fernandez remains alive, though Chelsea expect the Argentina midfielder to stay put after their self-imposed deadline for offers passed without a formal bid.
The situation is one to watch closely before the 1 September transfer deadline, with well-placed sources maintaining that City boss Enzo Maresca retains a strong interest in landing the Chelsea star.
