Manchester City have signed French defender Aymeric Laporte from Athletic Bilbao for a club record fee of £57m.

The fee for Laporte, yet to win a cap for France, takes spending by Premier League clubs to £252m this month - a record for a January transfer window.
The 23-year-old's arrival takes City manager Pep Guardiola's spending on defenders and a goalkeeper since the end of last season to £215.5m.
The club's previous record fee was the £55m paid for Kevin de Bruyne in 2015.

The centre-back has played 19 times for France at Under-21 level.
"I am looking forward to working under manager Pep Guardiola and trying to help the club to achieve success," he told the City website.
"It means a lot that the club have shown faith in me and I am excited to get started."

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.

City's defensive spending 2017-18
Benjamin Mendy (left-back) - £52m
Ederson (goalkeeper) - £35m
Kyle Walker (right-back) - £45m
Danilo (full-back) - £26.5m
Aymeric Laporte (centre-back) - £57m

Analysis

Journalist Julien Laurens speaking on the BBC's Euro League podcast
He is a Guardiola type of player, so good on the ball. He carries the ball into midfield, he is perfect for City and City are perfect for him.
City were ready to pay 60m Euros for him in 2016, but he said he was not ready and he wanted to stay at Bilbao. Now 18 months later, he feels ready.
He knows now is the time, the World Cup is in six months - he has not been capped by France yet.

France boss Didier Deschamps is sceptical about him, especially physically. That is the only question mark over him coming to the Premier League. He will face different types of strikers than in Spain.
He has only been called up once by France and he is even considering switching allegiances to Spain, for whom he qualifies through residency.

Top-flight clubs smash January record

City's £57m Laporte capture moved the total spent this window from £195m to a record £252m.
The previous mark of £225m was set in 2011, when Liverpool striker Fernando Torres moved to Chelsea on deadline day.

Chile forward Alexis Sanchez's move from Arsenal to Manchester United has been the story of the window so far, despite no fee being involved as he made the switch in a straight swap for Armenia playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
The biggest fee so far is the £75m Liverpool paid to Southampton for Netherlands centre-back Virgil van Dijk - a world record for a defender.

Twelve months ago

In January 2017, a six-year high of £215m was spent by Premier League clubs in 162 completed deals.
For the first time, Premier League clubs recorded a transfer window profit - bringing in £40m more than they paid out.

But the top six clubs spent just £40,000 during the window and, while Gabriel Jesus did move to Manchester City that month, he had already signed from Palmeiras in August 2016.

Other big transfers included Morgan Schneiderlin's move from Manchester United to Everton (£20m) and Wilfred Ndidi transferring from Genk to Leicester City (£15m)

Too much spent on Defense ONLY , really can't wait to see Laporte in starting 11 line-up , i love that french man !

TN