Manchester City confirm Wilfried Bony signing

Manchester City have completed the signing of Wilfried Bony from Swansea City on Wednesday in a deal worth around £25m.

The 26-year-old striker has agreed terms on a four-and-a-half-year deal taking him up to the end of the 2018-19 season and will wear the No14 shirt. He is believed to be on around £100,000 a week.

Bony told the Manchester City website: “It’s a great feeling for me, it’s a big honour to be here and it’s a great challenge. As a player it’s always good to be part of one of the biggest clubs in the world and it’s a good opportunity for me to be in that situation now – I’m really proud.

“I felt excited to wait for this moment and now it’s come, it’s fantastic. I think it’s a great decision for me – Manchester City is in the Champions League. You remember at the end of last season I said that if I want to move it will be to a team in the competition because it’s a great tournament that I really want to play in and one that I want to win.

“It’s a motivation for me to give my maximum to be in that place. City is a big club with great players with a lot of experience; I believe we can do it.”

The move was pre-empted by the Ivory Coast Football Federation, which announced their striker had signed for City on Wednesday morning. “Striker Wilfried Bony has just signed with Manchester City on this Wednesday, January 14, 2015,” the federation tweeted through its official account.

He is with the Ivory Coast at the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea, meaning he may be unavailable until the middle of next month. However, with only three frontline strikers, Sergio Agüero, Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic, Manuel Pellegrini has decided to add extra firepower in attack.

Agüero and Dzeko are injured and Jovetic has failed to impress recently, so the manager has opted to field James Milner as a No9 for some games.

(Guardian Service)

Additional reporting:

City boss Manuel Pellegrini said he was delighted to add Bony, who will wear the number 14 shirt, to a strikeforce containing Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic.

“He is very difficult to mark because he is so strong,” Pellegrini told the official club website.

“He is an intelligent footballer who has skill and power.

“His goals record has been excellent since he came to England. He adapted very quickly to the game here and I think he will settle in at City quickly.

“He will be a very good addition to our squad. We now have four top-class strikers and I am looking forward to seeing them work together.”