Manchester City have lobbed a second bid worth £122m for Elliot Anderson at Nottingham Forest, only for the club to swat it away like a particularly annoying fly. City’s offer, which follows an initial £80m bid for the 23-year-old England midfielder, consists of a guaranteed £106m plus £16m in potential add-ons. This would have already shattered City’s own record of £100m paid to Aston Villa for Jack Grealish in August 2021, but Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis is holding out for a British record transfer fee of £125m before any add-ons. That benchmark was set last summer when Newcastle received £125m from Liverpool for Alexander Isak, and Marinakis apparently wants to join that exclusive club.

Meanwhile, Manchester United have been circling like a vulture eyeing a rival’s prize, but with the fee now sky-high, it remains to be seen whether Sir Jim Ratcliffe, United’s football chief, will greenlight an effort to outbid City. Sources suggest United may just bow out, perhaps realizing that £125m is a lot to spend on a player who hasn’t even started a World Cup yet.

Speaking of which, Thomas Tuchel is expected to name Anderson in England’s starting lineup for their World Cup opener against Croatia on Wednesday. The German manager, a realist who understands that players might need to finalize transfers during the tournament, wants any deal done in an orderly fashion to avoid disrupting England’s prospects. This might explain why Hugo Viana, City’s director of football, chose to make the second bid eight days before the Croatia game - to minimize distraction for player and country. Since that offer was rejected, Viana may now return with a third, and possibly final, bid by the end of the week. Because nothing says ‘orderly’ like a last-minute bidding war.