Liverpool are trying to put a deal together to sign Edin Dzeko, the Wolfsburg striker, but fear they will not be able to match Manchester City's spending power.
The Bosnia striker, 24, has a €40million (£34 million) release clause in his contract, which expires in 2013, and Wolfsburg hope that City's interest will help them receive a figure as close to that as possible.
Wolfsburg had hoped to keep Dzeko until the summer but after a poor start to the season under Steve McClaren - they are 13th in the Bundesliga and out of the cup - they are prepared to let their star player go. Wolfsburg, who won the title in 2009 with Dzeko as top scorer, are open to Liverpool's suggestion of taking players in part-exchange, with Ryan Babel and Daniel Agger the German club's preferred options.
City have confirmed they have been in dialogue with Wolfsburg and it is understood they wanted to put Emmanuel Adebayor into a deal in part-exchange. Adebayor, however, does not want to move to the Bundesliga.
A deal for Dezko would be the biggest of what is set up to be a frenetic transfer window. It opens on Jan 1 and one senior club executive said, "I have never seen anything like it at this time of year. There are agents aggressively pushing players and sometimes several different agents all working for the same player."
With some agencies understood to be in financial difficulty, and several clubs, especially on the continent, needing to sell to stave off financial pressure, there is value in a market which has previously proved a poor time to spend.
YNWA
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