It seemed everybody believed Marc Guehi would stay at Crystal Palace until the end of the season — everybody save Manchester City, who were in a hurry.
On Monday, City announced the signing of the 25-year-old central defender, who has joined for £20million ($26.9m) on a contract that runs until 2031. He undoubtedly bolsters their squad for the second half of the season but should also be spending the best years of his career at the club.
City’s determination to beat several rivals to Guehi has seen them pay a transfer fee on top of the type of money that the England international, and his representatives, had been expecting to make in the summer, when his Palace contract expired.
Sources familiar with the deal, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, have told The Athletic that on top of the £20m fee, City paid Guehi’s agent a significant commission. The deal has a sell-on clause that would allow Palace to profit from a future sale, believed to be 10 per cent. Guehi’s wage demands were understood to be in the region of £300,000 per week but sources close to City say that final terms agreed were lower than that.
Only that combination of commitment and financial power would have been enough to move the needle, because even a couple of weeks ago, a January deal had seemed improbable.
After seeing his move to Liverpool fall through on deadline day last summer, Guehi had decided that he would not sign a new deal at Selhurst Park but would see out the remainder of the contract he signed in 2021.
Free to speak to overseas clubs from January 1, Guehi’s representatives held talks with several suitors in recent weeks, with Bayern Munich presenting what sources describe as a very strong pitch.
Until very recently, Palace had been hoping to keep their captain and Guehi was in no great rush to move. Though he had been disappointed not to complete his move to Anfield in September, he was happy at Palace where he was playing regularly at a high level, important in a World Cup year. Guehi also knew that he would significantly increase his salary in the summer, thanks partly to interested clubs not having to pay a transfer fee.
He was leaning towards a move abroad, but Spain did not seem to be a realistic option given Real Madrid had decided they would not pursue a move and neither Barcelona nor Atletico Madrid — who were keen — could afford him.
City are delighted to have signed Guehi, considering they have been long-term admirers, he boosts their homegrown quota and helps alleviate their current injury situation, with centre-halves Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol and John Stones all currently sidelined.
Stones is likely to leave on a free transfer when his contract expires in the summer, effectively making Guehi his replacement, though the decision to steal ahead of their rivals can be looked at in two ways.
City will be happy to have secured an England international in the peak years of his career for the kind of financial package that is worth far less than they would have had to pay had he been in the middle of his contract at Palace. Others would point out that the overall cost would have been considerably lower in six months’ time. Many of Europe’s leading clubs were willing to pay major money in the summer, but they were either unable or unwilling to do that now.
City, who had decided to put off any major transfer movement in the summer of 2024, have since overhauled their squad almost beyond recognition since last January.
Guehi and Erling Haaland are now team-mates (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Liverpool were considered to be in the driving seat to sign Guehi, given they had come so close to signing him in September. When Palace torpedoed that deal, Guehi was in a scanner at a private clinic in London, undergoing Liverpool’s medical tests. Palace pulled out because they could not secure an adequate replacement and because manager Oliver Glasner was angry at having his captain sold so late in the window.
City believed at the start of last week that Liverpool were the leading competition to do a deal this month, but the reality was rather different. Liverpool had decided that they would only go back in for Guehi in the summer of 2026 and hoped that the player would also wait. When they were made aware that Palace would do a deal this month, and how much that would cost in fees and wages, they decided not to pursue it, concluding that it simply did not make financial sense.
Bayern had been making a major push to sign Guehi at the end of the season, with Harry Kane (a colleague with England) and Michael Olise (a former teammate at Palace) contacting him. The German club presented an attractive financial offer, but they also had a summer move in mind.
Former club Chelsea, where Guehi came through the academy from the age of six, were interested in re-signing the centre back 12 months ago before recalling Trevoh Chalobah from a season-long loan at Crystal Palace instead. The club decided against it because of Crystal Palace’s valuation at the time, which sources, speaking anonymously to The Athletic, say was £65m.
Chelsea were under the impression Palace would not sell Guehi last summer too. They pursued Dean Huijsen before he opted to join Real Madrid from Bournemouth.
The huge overall cost of doing the deal now in January to take into account, meant he was ruled out as a potential target this month. Chelsea are also looking for a centre-back with different attributes anyway. They are currently in talks with Rennes’ 20-year-old defender Jeremy Jacquet.
Whether Chelsea are due to make some money on Guehi’s move to City thanks to a sell-on clause included in that 2021 transfer is contested. Chelsea were due to receive around 20 per cent of any profit that Palace made on his sale. Sources close to Chelsea claim a small fee is due, although Palace sources say that is not the case. Either way, due to the transfer fee involved, any sum would be relatively low.
Guehi in his Chelsea days (Naomi Baker/Getty Images)
Arsenal, like others, have always been big admirers of Guehi. They were interested last summer and, at Mikel Arteta’s urging, sporting director Andrea Berta explored the parameters of a potential free transfer deal in summer 2026. A January move was considered implausible for many reasons, including the money they spent ahead of this season, the number of defenders already at the club and the commitment to making Piero Hincapie’s loan permanent.
According to sources close to the situation, Guehi also had reservations about joining a club where he would not be the undisputed first choice — although it is unlikely he would have received any reassurances about that from Pep Guardiola.
City had been pushing hard to sign Guehi throughout January and reached a breakthrough with Palace on Thursday evening.
Glasner said over the weekend that he had been told at 10.30am on Friday about Guehi’s likely departure. Sources say that he had been updated on the transfer moving ahead shortly before that, and that he had hoped that Guehi would be part of the squad for Saturday’s game against Sunderland. It was around 10.30am that Guehi informed him that he did not want to play.
Guehi ahead of his final game at Palace, the FA Cup defeat by Macclesfield (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
A couple of hours later, Glasner all but confirmed the move in his press conference, as well as revealing his own exit at the end of the season, while making his displeasure with the Palace board clear, something which continued following the 2-1 defeat at the Stadium of Light.
“We are preparing and then yesterday (Friday), I get told that our captain will be sold, but why not next week?” Glasner told reporters. “At least he can play this game and then next week, other players are coming back. It makes me really upset.”
City’s other January acquisition, Antoine Semenyo, only flew up to Manchester to complete his move after scoring a last-minute winner for Bournemouth against Tottenham Hotspur, and even that was considered late as far as City were concerned, given they had drawn with Brighton that same evening.
It transpired that City’s negotiations for Semenyo were drawn out by a late change in terms, with City agreeing to pay £62.5m spread over 24 months. That wiggle room may have helped them put the finances in place for Guehi’s transfer fee, wages and agent commission.
Guehi flew to Manchester for a medical and to complete the formalities of the move on Sunday, and on Monday was announced as the 11th player to have joined the City first team since the start of last January.
Several club legends, including Ederson, Kyle Walker, Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne, as well as key players in the 2023 treble success, like Jack Grealish and Manuel Akanji, have left the club in that time.
A key part of City’s overhaul has been to lower their wage bill considerably by signing replacements on much lower wages than those who have departed, something that they achieved with their business throughout 2025.
Guardiola has all but confirmed that Stones will become the next long-serving player to leave City at the end of this season, having missed much of the past 18 months through injury. He is also on big money, having excelled for club and country at a time when he had just one year left on his previous contract.
(Maria Jose Segovia/DeFodi Images/DeFodi via Getty Images)
While the former Everton and Barnsley player is on big wages at City, the circumstances around Guehi’s arrival, and the competition for his signature, does buck the recent trend of offering prospective signings a significantly lower salary than their predecessor.
Semenyo’s arrival is also a signal of intent from City, especially as the winger had attracted interest from essentially all of England’s top clubs, but decided early that he only wanted to move to the Etihad. City are also aiming to offset his signing by selling Oscar Bobb this month.
Although Guehi cannot be registered for City’s remaining Champions League group phase matches, he is in line to make his debut for City against Wolves on Saturday.
There should be no concerns about game time in the coming weeks, with Dias still out for around three to four weeks, uncertainty about Stones’ return date and Gvardiol only likely to be in contention at the end of the campaign.
Guehi is likely to play alongside Abdukodir Khusanov in the interim, with the 21-year-old doing well in recent weeks. Max Alleyne, who joined City’s academy at 15 and was recalled from Watford a fortnight ago following those injuries to Dias and Gvardiol, has impressed Guardiola and is considered a viable first-team option, having started the past four matches.
Guehi is likely to partner Abdukodir Khusanov in the short term (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Alleyne is in line to start against Bodo/Glimt in the Champions League on Tuesday and is in City’s long-term thinking; he may be the replacement for Nathan Ake if the Dutchman leaves in the summer, in the same way that Guehi is considered Stones’ eventual replacement.
Ake himself had been a target for Palace this month, as Glasner alluded to recently, though City’s injury situation put that move on ice — he has played the last four matches.
Vitor Reis, who also moved to Manchester last January, will remain on loan at Girona for the rest of the season as City are pleased with his progression in La Liga. Although Reis is of slight frame, the club have little concern about his physicality thanks to his early experience of the tough Brazilian league as a teenager, and are encouraged by his development during his time in Spain.
It means City will have an extremely strong crop of centre-backs heading into next season, but the club will be hoping that Guehi will make a major impact in the here and now.
(Additional reporting: David Ornstein, Seb Stafford-Bloor, Mario Cortegana, Simon Johnson, Matt Woosnam, James Pearce)