Super agent Mino Raiola is looking to move the Dutch international Kluivert is also admired by Jose Mourinho LONDON: Manchester City have added Justin Kluivert to a shortlist of potential summer signings as Pep Guardiola seeks to further strengthen an attack that has scored over 100 English Premier League goals this season. The teenage Netherlands international has refused to sign new terms at Ajax Amsterdam, who are resigned to losing him in the coming transfer window. And sources close to the player and at Ajax expect the Premier League champions to lead the race to sign him. Kluivert turned 19 this week and has scored 10 goals in 30 top-tier appearances for Ajax this season, having broken into the Eredivise side’s first team during a run to last year’s Europa League Final. Fast, two-footed and comfortable playing anywhere in the second line of the attack, his skill set is an obvious fit to the system with which Pep Guardiola had led City to a runaway domestic title success. As Kluivert is approaching the final year of his first professional contract, the Dutchman also represents a relatively low-cost alternative to other candidates for the position. City attempted to use Abu Dhabi’s prodigious funding to recruit Alexis Sanchez and Kylian Mbappe last summer, and were stymied in a January move for Riyad Mahrez. AS Monaco’s Thomas Lemar and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard rank among the top-end options on the coming window’s market. City also hold a strong interest in Portugal U-21 international Rafael Leao; however Sporting have so far refused to even discuss the possibility of selling a player the Portuguese club considers central to future plans. Kluivert is represented by Mino Raiola, who has applied the strategy with which he moved a teenage Paul Pogba out of Manchester United in 2012, setting his client’s salary demands at a level Ajax refuse to match. Ajax chief executive Edwin van der Sar held an unsuccessful meeting with Raiola this week. “We have been talking for 10 months now, and we are a bit done with it all now,” Van der Sar said this week. “He is difficult to keep. His agent pushes him toward the exit, which is a shame. It is not our intention to let players aged 18 or 19 leave the club. That is not the philosophy of Ajax.” Although Ajax’s bargaining position is constrained by the length of Kluivert’s contract and an expectation that Raiola will attempt to maximize financial return from the player’s next employer, the club will attempt to secure as high a transfer fee as possible. “We think he is better than Raheem Sterling,” a club source told Arab News. “We’ll try to get as much as possible.” Manchester United are also in the market for a winger comfortable playing off his left foot, with Kluivert included on their own recruitment short list last year. Jose Mourinho made a point of personally complimenting the forward on his debut campaign in the immediate aftermath of United’s Europa League Final defeat of Ajax last May. Raiola’s relationship with United, however, has deteriorated in recent months. The Dutch-Italian agent has offered marquee player Pogba to domestic and Champions League rivals and unnecessarily complicated January’s Sanchez-Henrikh Mkhitaryan exchange deal. It is unclear whether the Old Trafford club would be prepared to enter into another complex negotiation with him. Raiola and Guardiola have also been at odds this season, with the agent branding the City manager “a coward, a dog.” Kluivert’s father, former Netherlands striker Patrick, has publicly stated a preference that his son’s next club be his own former home, Barcelona. While the newly crowned Liga champions are considering a bid for Kluivert, he is just one of a number of candidates on a recruitment list that also includes Real Betis forward Fabian Ruiz.