Italian football journalist Fabrizio Romano has dropped a worrying update on Manchester City's transfer plans ahead of the window closing on Tuesday evening.

What's the word?

Despite losing legendary striker Sergio Aguero earlier this year, City are yet to sign a striker to replace the Argentinian and have failed in their pursuits of Harry Kane and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Ferran Torres has played up front in each of City's three Premier League games thus far and whilst he has impressed, scoring twice in the 5-0 win against Arsenal, it would perhaps be unfair to rely on a 21-year-old who has played the majority of his career on the wing to be the main striker for the season.

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However, it seems as if City are out of options after their two recent setbacks and with time running out, a new striker seems unlikely, as Romano wrote in a column for BenchWarmers:

"Manchester City could remain with the current squad after having missed out on Cristiano Ronaldo and especially Harry Kane, the real big goal of the club for months and months."

Will City struggle without new signings?

Whilst it is easy to argue that City don't need a forward after winning both of their last two games 5-0, they were playing relegation candidates in Norwich City and an Arsenal side now sitting bottom of the table. Therefore, it would perhaps be better to judge where City are at when they face Leicester City and Chelsea away from home next month.

Although they won the title last season despite regularly playing without a natural striker in their side, they were exposed in their final few games of the season, most predominantly by Chelsea, and were easy to defend against when sending crosses into the box for the likes of Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling.

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Therefore, fans may well be worried with this update from Romano. It was already bad enough to miss out on Kane but to then fail to seal a deal for one of the greatest of all time in Ronaldo, only confounded their misery in the market.

If they don't sign a new striker between now and the deadline then they may struggle to adapt their game against tougher opponents or in situations where they need a goal as they showed in the latter stages of last season. As a result, fans will surely be worried by their prospects when teams around them have strengthened so well.

And, in other news... Txiki should seal Man City swoop for "outstanding" goal-machine after ex-player claim