Man City ‘come to terms’ with Erling Haaland ‘issue’ with club ‘confident’ of ‘agreeing’ deal

Manchester City are reportedly feeling “increasingly confident” about their chances of keeping Erling Haaland, who is likely to sign a contract extension.

Man City paid around £51m to sign Haaland from Borussia Dortmund during the 2021 summer transfer window and he’s proven to be a huge bargain.

Following his move to the Etihad, Haaland has established himself as one of the best strikers in the world as he’s scored 105 goals in his 114 appearances across all competitions.

Haaland is tied to Man City for a few more seasons as his current contract does not expire until 2027. Despite this, he is being heavily linked with an exit and a ‘surprise Plan B’ are challenging Real Madrid and Barcelona in the race to sign him.

Any club in the world would surely be delighted to sign Haaland, but he is in talks with Man City over a contract extension and a report from journalist Graeme Bailey says they are “confident about agreeing terms”.

Bailey also claims Man City have “come to terms” with Haaland’s new deal having a release clause and has explained how he expects this would work.

“City are confident about agreeing terms. They’ve been trying for two years,” Bailey revealed.

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“Obviously, the issue has always been the release clauses, which are not going to be removed from the contracts in any way, shape or form. It’s not going to happen. City have come to terms with that.

“Their hope is that they can be altered in terms of when they come into play. If he signs a new deal for instance in the next few weeks or months, which City hope, that will, from my understanding, mean it won’t be allowed to be triggered until 2026 rather than 2025.

“They’re not massively worried as the clauses are going to be huge anyway for teams to meet that. And Haaland has always had these in, they make sure these are in there for the long-term safety of the player.

“It’s just the situation that every contract Haaland has ever signed has had release clauses and that’s not going to change for this one. It’s nothing to do with him, or an exit strategy or anything like that, it’s just how they work.”

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Bailey says Man City are “increasingly confident”. This is while they remain “very busy” with Pep Guardiola, whose deal expires in 2025.

“City, from my understanding are increasingly confident that he’ll agree,” Bailey added.

“Obviously [Ferran] Soriano is very busy with Guardiola as well. They think Haaland will commit to a new deal. Obviously it will involve a huge wage increase for him, but money wasn’t really the issue particularly.

“It will at least extend his stay in the short-term and completely put an end to any talk he may go in the summer.”