Sven-Goran Eriksson and Harry Redknapp believe the £6.5 million transfer of Benjani Mwaruwari to Manchester City from Portsmouth could still go ahead.

It appeared that the clubs narrowly missed the midnight deadline to complete the deal, but the Premier League are investigating the matter further and both managers hope the Zimbabwean will become a City player.

"I don't know what's happening. I hope it could still go through," said Eriksson, who is short on strikers following the exit of Rolando Bianchi and Georgios Samaras.

"I would like to have him in the squad. It was a little bit crazy I'd say. It was a long day and a long night.

"I went to London to get a work permit for Benjani and Felipe Caicedo and that was positive.

"Then I came back to Manchester. I was supposed to see Benjani. I was told he was due to arrive at 9pm, but he did not arrive until 11:15pm.

"I've not spoken to [chief executive] Alistair Macintosh so I don't know what's happening."

Portsmouth signed Jermain Defoe for £8m on Thursday and had intended to fund the deal by selling Benjani, but administrative problems meant midnight passed before the transger could be registered.

Redknapp said he thought the deal had gone through with seconds to spare.

"We got the call from them at 11.55pm that their forms had gone through and that's when Peter Storrie gave the go-ahead for our forms [to register Defoe] to go through," he said.

"Once their forms were sent, we had to get ours off very quickly. I thought we were struggling for time.

"Their one had dragged on a bit because Benji had a bit of a delay getting there with one thing and another.

"As far as we knew, they sent their forms so I don't see why there should be a problem.

"If Benji is back we'll just have to see where we go with that one. He's a good player and we didn't want to lose him but we had to try to balance the books."

Alex Chick / Eurosport