Manchester City’s newest signing will be reunited with former Borussia Dortmund teammate Erling Haaland at the Etihad.
Akanji has become the third former Borussia Dortmund player to arrive at City this summer following the signings of Haaland and Sergio Gomez after the Blues moved to snag the centre-back for a cut-price fee. Pep Guardiola is low on options at the back due to injuries to Aymeric Laporte, Nathan Ake and Luke Mbete and the 27-year-old will alleviate that problem after penning a five-year deal.
Akanji knows Haaland well from their time together at Signal Iduna Park and the Swiss have revealed that the free-scoring striker was the first person to text him once the deal came to light.
“He [Haaland] was actually the first one who texted me,” he told City’s in-house media. “It was a couple of days ago he texted me and that’s when I told him I would really like to come here. And also Sergio Gomez, I play with him as well in Dortmund.”
Akanji also admitted he never saw Gomez turning into a left-back after coming through at Dortmund as a forward. When asked for his opinion on the Spaniard as a footballer, he replied: “It’s hard to tell for me now because when he was at Dortmund he was a No.10 and now he’s a left-back so I don’t really know how he plays right now. It was a different play style but I want to see how he’s doing, and how he is in training and I’m looking forward to meeting both of them.
“Not really [did he think Gomez would go to left-back] I thought the way he was playing there, No.10, was the perfect position for him but he just didn’t get as many minutes in Dortmund because we had some other really good players there so he needed to make a step somewhere else where he could develop and obviously it helped him a lot otherwise he wouldn’t be here.”