Manchester City are reportedly lining up a summer move for Real Sociedad goalkeeper, Gerónimo Rulli to beat several other sides to the Argentine stopper before loaning him out to one of the competition, La Liga side, Valencia.

According to Spanish football site, Superdeporte the Premier League side have emerged as surprise contenders for the signature of Sociedad’s highly regarded young goalkeeper. A string of superb performances in La Liga since his switch from Estudiantes at the beginning of last season has seen interest in the 23-year-old sky-rocket and although Rulli was unfortunate to miss out on Argentina’s Copa América squad there remains several interested parties.

Valencia were understood to be front-runners after recently discovering that first-choice Diego Alves is likely to be out until the new year through injury. Rulli would certainly be a more than able deputy, who Sociedad would be loathed to lose, but if available Los Che could expect competition.

Manchester City are now said to be interested in signing Rulli ahead of Valencia but would then loan the goalkeeper out to the Liga BBVA side to gain further experience in the Champions League. The idea being that Rulli, at five years Joe Hart’s junior, would continue to develop over this period, in the same way Chelsea benefitted from sending Thibaut Courtois on-loan to Atlético Madrid.

Rulli is certainly being eyed as a potential Argentina number one despite missing out on this Copa América and it was obvious very early after his debut with Estudiantes that he is a goalkeeper of enormous potential.

The disadvantage for City is that Rulli has only been in Spain for one year and does not yet have his EU passport and may struggle to get a visa to play in England. For Valencia this would of course not prove a stumbling block and so Los Che are still confident that they can win the race for Rulli’s signature.