Tottenham, West Ham and Crystal Palace set to lose £25m Premier League transfer race

Manchester City attacking midfielder James McAtee is expected to seal a transfer switch to Bundesliga giants Eintracht Frankfurt this summer, having flown to Germany to meet with the club.

The 22-year-old captained the England under-21 side to Euro glory last month, named Player of the Match in the final as the Three Lions beat Germany 3-2. McAtee had been linked with a move to London with Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham and Crystal Palace all credited with interest in recent weeks.

The midfielder spent the 2023/24 campaign on loan at Sheffield United and impressed, despite the Blades being relegated to the Championship. He had spent the prior campaign on loan at Bramall Lane too.

James McAtee to be sold by Manchester City

McAtee remained at the Etihad Stadium for last season but found gametime hard to come by under Pep Guardiola. He played fewer than 1,000 minutes across all competitions but did score seven goals, including an FA Cup hat-trick against Salford.

Football Insider reports that Manchester City are ready to sell McAtee for ‘pure profit’ this summer. Due to the player’s status as a home grown player, he will generate a large profit from a PSR and FFP perspective with a £25 million fee slapped on his head.

Providing the latest on Eintracht Frankfurt interest, transfer guru Fabrizio Romano wrote: “Understand James McAtee is now in Frankfurt to visit Eintracht as potential new club! McAtee, assessing his options ahead of move away from Manchester City this summer… and Eintracht are on it.”

West Ham, who have just sold Mohammed Kudus to Tottenham Hotspur, are in the market for reinforcements. McAtee could fulfil a wide role, as well as playing centrally, with Ben Jacobs recently reporting Hammers interest in the player. He wrote on social media: “West Ham and Nottingham Forest are among the clubs interested in signing James McAtee. McAtee also has interest from clubs in Germany. City value the 22-year-old in a similar bracket to Cole Palmer at the time he left the club to join Chelsea for £40m.”

Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace linked with McAtee

That claimed fee is on the high end of what has been widely reported as the asking price. Tottenham Hotspur had been linked with McAtee earlier this summer with CaughtOffside claiming that Crystal Palace were also ‘keen’ last week.

Speaking about McAtee in April following an impressive outing against Crystal Palace, Guardiola said: “We haven’t seen it [from James] this season because I didn’t allow him to play minutes. I cannot ask anything from these types of players when they do not play a lot of minutes. They could do better? No.

“In the Spurs game, maybe the first games he played in the Carabao Cup he played really good. Macca has this quality, he could’ve scored four goals [against Palace]. He has the ability to create chances, he is there.

“Macca lives close to the box, quite similar to Phil and they are there. They have a sense [of goal], it’s difficult to train in the moment the ball is coming and after he didn’t score but it’s fine. As much minutes he plays he will score.”

In other news, West Ham handed pre-season injury blow ahead of Sunderland and Chelsea.