City have agreed a £10million package with the Tractor Boys for Nunez, including £2.5million in ‘achievable bonuses’, despite being keen to keep the player as he entered the final year of his contract.
They offered Nunez new deals both this summer and last season but saw their advances rejected by the Chilean’s representatives. He’s now in Ipswich to complete the final touches on the transfer, after Town submitted the only bid received for him during the transfer window.
Nunez is set to be replaced by Mattsson, who is travelling to Norfolk to complete a medical ahead of a move worth £2.7million plus £300,000 of add-ons.
Norwich preferred Mirko Topic to Mattsson earlier this summer, signing the Serbian from Famalicao with negotiations deadlocked over a transfer fee for the latter.
But they are now back in the market and keen to make this pursuit of Mattsson stick after tracking him since well before the end of last season. They’ve got four days to complete any further business, with the deadline at 7pm on Monday.
Head coach Liam Manning refused to rule out any further transfer business in his pre-Blackburn press conference this afternoon, despite his side having completed 11 senior signings already.
“It’s the transfer window, right? You never know what happens,” he said. “It’s such a fluid, evolving time of year that anything can happen.”
Nunez scored the winner the last time the two sides met, firing a free-kick home from distance to extend City’s unbeaten East Anglian derby run to 16 years. He’s played 119 games in yellow and green since joining from Universidad Catolica in 2022, scoring 12 goals and claiming 10 assists.
Mattsson is making his first move away from Denmark after coming through the academy at Silkeborg, and admitted earlier in the summer that he saw his future elsewhere.
“I’m not disappointed that nothing has fallen into place yet,” he told Midtjyllands Avis. “My agent and I are watching the time and seeing if something comes along that suits both parties.
“Then we’ll see when it happens… if it happens. It’s not up to me whether I’m here after September 1st, but I’ve said that I’m ready for the next step.”