Manchester City are reportedly preparing to approach Wolverhampton Wanderers with a second offer for midfielder Matheus Nunes.
The Premier League champions are already believed to have failed with an opening bid of £47m for the Portugal international, who is keen to move to the Etihad.
However, Wolves have Nunes under contract until 2027 - with the option of a further year - and are therefore under no pressure to let him leave on the cheap, in spite of their Financial Fair Play concerns.
The Molineux outfit have supposedly slapped a £60m price tag on the head of Nunes, who was brought to the Premier League in a £38m deal from Sporting Lisbon last summer.
It has been claimed that City were prepared to walk away from a deal if the conditions were not right, but The Telegraph reports that the Manchester giants will soon try their luck with a fresh approach for the 24-year-old, but their first bid was significantly short of Wolves' valuation.
It is unclear how high the treble winners are willing to go in their efforts to sign Nunes before next Friday's deadline, but he has apparently been earmarked as a key target by Pep Guardiola.
Having made a name for himself with Sporting, Nunes was heavily linked with a move to Liverpool, but the Reds shelved their plans to sign a new midfielder last summer in order to prioritise their ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of Jude Bellingham.
Instead, the midfielder joined many of his fellow Portugal internationals at Wolves, making 41 appearances in his debut campaign, but he largely struggled to make his mark in the Premier League.
Nunes scored one goal and set up one more in 34 top-flight games last season, scoring a peach of a winner against Chelsea in April to help Wolves stave off relegation to the Championship.
The former Sporting man has also started both of Wolves' top-flight games in 2023-24 so far, but he received a red card in last weekend's 4-1 loss to Brighton & Hove Albion for two bookable offences.
Even if Nunes is still on the books at Wolves ahead of their Premier League clash with Everton on Saturday, the 24-year-old will miss out through suspension as Gary O'Neil's side seek their first points of the campaign.
Wolves have already let a plethora of established names depart the club this summer, moving on the likes of Ruben Neves, Raul Jimenez, Conor Coady and Nathan Collins, but the club do not intend to offload Nunes before the deadline.
Nunes's terms supposedly included a clause allowing him to join Liverpool in the most recent January transfer window, but Wolves removed that option last season.
Man City confirmed their third signing of the summer window on Thursday, bringing in Jeremy Doku in a £55.8m deal from Rennes following the previous captures of Mateo Kovacic and Josko Gvardiol.
Bernardo Silva has also extended his contract until 2026, but the Citizens are on the lookout for another new lynchpin as Kevin De Bruyne spends the next few months recovering from a hamstring injury, while John Stones is out until after the international break with a thigh concern. body check tags ::
