Morgan Gibbs-White, Florian Wirtz among Manchester City’s options as they consider midfield addition

Nottingham Forest midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White and Bayer Leverkusen’s Florian Wirtz are among the options Manchester City will consider to replace captain Kevin De Bruyne this summer.

City playmaker De Bruyne announced last Friday that he is to depart City when this season ends after 10 years at the Etihad Stadium.

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Internal and external solutions are set to be explored as City go about filling the 33-year-old Belgium international’s void, with multiple candidates including Gibbs-White and Wirtz expected to feature in the club’s deliberations.

City do not intend to prioritise transfer targets until new director of football Hugo Viana gets fully under way in his role. Viana is replacing Txiki Begiristain and officially started this week, the pair working together during a transition period.

The Portuguese was seen at Old Trafford during Sunday’s Manchester derby and is sure to exert significant influence over City’s recruitment work.

Whether City opt to sign a like-for-like successor to De Bruyne or use existing personnel like Phil Foden — perhaps strengthening in a different attacking area instead — is still to be decided.

Wirtz has impressed for Leverkusen over the past few seasons (Pau Barrena/Getty Images)

Gibbs-White has enjoyed an impressive campaign so far, registering five goals and nine assists in 27 Premier League appearances as Forest challenge for a Champions League qualification place.

The 25-year-old, who is contracted until 2027, earned a first call-up to the England squad in August under interim head coach Lee Carsley and received his first two caps the following month.

Wirtz, meanwhile, has become one of European football’s most coveted men after a fine 2023-24. He won Bundesliga player of the season as Leverkusen went undefeated domestically, lifting their first league title and the DFB-Pokal.

After making his senior debut as a 17-year-old in 2020, Wirtz has made 191 appearances and accumulated 56 goals and 63 assists. He has been capped 29 times by Germany and was part of Julian Nagelsmann’s squad at Euro 2024.

Leverkusen value the 21-year-old at €150m, with Bundesliga rivals Bayern Munich also interested.

Wirtz’s contract expires in 2027 and he is yet to agree fresh terms, although Leverkusen CEO Fernando Carro said in November that the chances of him extending are “very high.”

‘A leader and a driving force’

Analysis from Nottingham Forest correspondent Paul Taylor

When Morgan Gibbs-White came off the bench in the 76th minute of England’s 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland in Dublin last September, it was a landmark moment for Forest — he was the club’s first player since Stuart Pearce in 1997 to pull on an England shirt.

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But it was also symbolic of Gibbs-White’s personal rise.

Big things were expected of him when the club paid an initial fee of £25million — possibly rising to £42.5million (now $54.2m) with add-ons — to sign him from Wolves in August 2022.

Then-head coach Steve Cooper had worked with the player with the Under-17 World Cup-winning England side and knew he could become a key figure for Forest.

Gibbs-White has developed into one of Forest’s most important players (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

Cooper’s replacement, Nuno Espirito Santo, had not given Gibbs-White a host of opportunities when they worked together at Wolves. But he believed he could evolve into something special.

And he has done exactly that at Forest, where he is not only the biggest creative influence in the side, but also a leader and driving force.

Playing as a number 10 or in a more orthodox midfield role, Gibbs-White is capable of making things happen. Whether carrying the ball with speed and purpose or picking out an incisive pass, he has become one of a few players who would leave a massive void, were they to ever depart.

Gibbs-White has provided seven assists and five goals for Forest this season, but the stats do not tell the whole story. When club captain Ryan Yates is not on the pitch, Gibbs-White has the armband. He leads by example with his energy, work rate and a fierce desire to win.

He has been a key figure in Forest’s challenge for Champions League qualification and Forest fans would hope to see him lead the side again if they do return to the European stage next season.

“Wirtz is sensational and there is still some growing to do.”

Analysis by The Athletic’s Bundesliga correspondent Sebastian Stafford-Bloor

A sensational player. Wirtz has been so good for the past two years, that he’s likely worth whatever Leverkusen are asking for him. €150m? Pay it.

Wirtz is still 21, which seems strange given how long he has been around for and the fact that, club and international football combined, he has played over 200 senior games.

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But in the last two year, since recovering from the knee injury that cost him a place at the 2022 World Cup, he has evolved into one of the most destructive playmakers in Europe — a brilliant carrier, who can glide past opponents with unsettling ease, but also a No 10 in a more traditional sense, replete with an array of knifing, penetrative passes.

But watch him off-the-ball, because that’s where one of his real strengths lies. Wirtz works incredibly hard to find and inhabit space between an opponent’s lines, and — as a result — it is incredibly difficult to stop him receiving passes and (by implication) influencing games.

There is still some growing to do. He is a scorer of fine goals, rather than a truly consistent goalscorer and is prone to missing chances.

And when opponents man-mark him in midfield, as Bayern Munich did in the Champions League last-16 first leg, he can find it difficult to extricate himself from that kind of attention.

Context is important, though, because so much of Leverkusen’s football passes through him. At a club with a stronger squad, where there are multiple playmaking threats, that’s unlikely to be such an effective strategy.

Ultimately, he is the reigning Bundesliga player of the year for good reason. Had he not been injured against Bayern, he would have retained that award, too, and that should describe exactly how rich his form has been.

A tremendous footballer.

(Top photo: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

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