Manchester City have signed French defender Aymeric Laporte from Athletic Bilbao for a club record fee of \u00a357m.<\/p>\n
The fee for Laporte, yet to win a cap for France, takes spending by Premier League clubs to \u00a3252m this month \u2013 a record for a January transfer window.<\/p>\n
And the 23-year-old\u2019s arrival takes City\u2019s spending on defenders since the end of last season to \u00a3190m.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s previous record fee was the \u00a355m paid to Wolfsburg for Belgium midfielder Kevin de Bruyne in 2015.<\/p>\n
The centre-back has played 19 times for France at Under-21 level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am looking forward to working under manager Pep Guardiola and trying to help the club to achieve success,\u201d he told the City website.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means a lot that the club have shown faith in me and I am excited to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n
Injury concern over skipper Vincent Kompany and uncertainty over the reliability of Eliaquim Mangala led Guardiola to believe he required another central defender in addition to current first choices John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Credit:BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manchester City have signed French defender Aymeric Laporte from Athletic Bilbao for a club record fee of \u00a357m. The fee for Laporte, yet to win a cap for France, takes spending by Premier League clubs to \u00a3252m this month \u2013 a record for a January transfer window. And the 23-year-old\u2019s arrival takes City\u2019s spending on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":396703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[16644,564,16643],"yoast_head":"\n