Manchester City have agreed an £18million deal to sign Roque Santa Cruz from Blackburn as they begin to build a squad to break into the Premier League's top four.
Manager Mark Hughes will finally be reunited with the striker he wanted to bring with him from Rovers to Eastlands last summer in the first of several blockbuster signings before the end of August.
Santa Cruz will cost £15m, with the rest of the fee dependant on appearances and team success, but he is likely to have to compete for a place with Carlos Tevez - who is ready to reject Manchester United and Liverpool - and Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o next season.
City are confident they are making progress in their pursuit of two of the most respected goalscorers playing in Europe - despite Eto'o's exorbitant wage demands of £192,000-a-week after tax - as chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak continues to back Hughes in the transfer market.
The signing of Santa Cruz, who missed the end of last season with a knee injury, shows that the manager remains in charge of the club's transfer targets.
Al-Mubarak has admitted his frustration at the perception of City as a club who do not deserve a place at the game's top table. The Cruz deal highlights his reluctance to pay wildly inflated fees, as the initial figure is £5m short of the price Blackburn quoted them in January when their bids were unsuccessful.
Hughes first signed Santa Cruz for Blackburn from Bayern Munich for £3.8m in 2007 after he had fallen out of favour at the German club. He scored 23 goals for Rovers in his first season but suffered with injury last term after the Welshman had move on.
Source - Daily Mail
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Hopefully this isn't the end of Eto'o coming
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