Leeds exodus continues as City agree £7m Fowler deal

Manchester City have agreed a fee in the region of £7m with Leeds United for the striker Robbie Fowler. The England forward's advisor, George Scott, was due to discuss Fowler's personal terms with the City chairman, David Bernstein, last night.

Although the Leeds manager, Terry Venables, had stressed that he would prefer to keep Fowler, it seems likely that selling him is the price he has to pay to bring in new players. Fowler appeared as a second-half substitute for Leeds during Saturday's 2-1 defeat at Maine Road and got a great reception from the City fans.

If the deal goes through, it will be the fifth major departure from Elland Road since Venables replaced David O'Leary as manager. After failing to qualify for the Champions' League for the second successive year, Leeds were forced to reduce mounting debts and Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Keane and Lee Bowyer have all been sold, with Olivier Dacourt on loan to Roma until the end of the season when a permanent deal is expected to be sealed.

Now Fowler, who joined Leeds in November 2001 for £11m, seems poised to follow them. Venables will be hoping that the fee enables him to move on his transfer targets, with the Argentinian defender Gabril Milito, the Brazilian midfielder Kleberson and the Birmingham City winger Stan Lazaridis thought to be top of his wanted list.

Fowler has spent most of this season injured after a hip operation in the summer following his return from the World Cup finals, where he appeared in England's 3-0 win over Denmark. He returned for Leeds in December and has since scored two goals in nine appearances. In total, he has played in 32 games and scored 14 goals for Leeds since joining the club from Liverpool.

His arrival at City may be timely, as Nicolas Anelka picked up a hamstring injury in the win over Leeds. His deputy for the game against Newcastle this weekend is Darren Huckerby, who was pulled out of a reserve game by Keegan yesterday in case he is needed.

Meanwhile, the Barcelona defender, Michael Reiziger, has rejected a loan move to City, saying he is interested only in a permanent deal. That looks highly unlikely given Keegan's expected outlay on Fowler.

The former City defender Laurent Charvet without a club since leaving in October, has joined Sochaux of the French first division.