Two favorite candidates are beginning to emerge as Manchester United’s search for a new center-back picks up steam.
Chris Smalling and Marcos Rojo have already left the club and the absent Phil Jones is also expected to leave, and Eric Bailly has so far also been unable to reach an agreement on a new contract.
This would leave Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelof and Axel Tuanzebe as the club’s only senior center-backs.
Various names have been featured in the press. Many column inches were dedicated to RB Leipzig’s Dayot Upamecano, who has since signed a pre-contract deal with Bayern Munich. Jules Koundé from Sevilla and Paul Torres from Villareal appeared later to move to the top of the list.
However, Sevilla are reportedly demanding around £ 75 million for Koundé and Torres is arguably too similar in style to Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof to provide the kind of matrix that manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer would want.
And with that being the case, according to The Sun and The Mirror respectively, it now appears to be Fiorentina’s Nikola Milenkovic and Real Madrid’s Raphael Varane who are being pursued by United’s director of football, John Murtough.
Varane is Rolls Royce’s choice and The Mirror claims that talks between the two clubs are progressing well as the Frenchman moves into the final year of his contract at the Bernabéu without any agreement to renew it.
Reports have claimed that the 27-year-old is looking for a new challenge elsewhere and the Whites’ financial situation means they will be much more receptive to offers than before.
The Mirror quotes El Chiringuito TV as saying that United is “in very advanced talks” about a possible deal.
The Sun, meanwhile, says United “are ready to step up” their search for the Serbian Milenkovic.
He is also entering the final year of his contract and is unwilling to sign a new one, putting several major clubs on alert, including United, Chelsea and AC Milan.
The 23-year-old’s asking price is said to be around £ 38m, but Fiorentina will need to be more realistic if it wants to avoid losing it for nothing 12 months later.
Logic suggests that Varane will be ‘Plan A’ for United if a figure below £ 50 million can be agreed upon, with Milenkovic Plan B somewhere around £ 25- £ 30 million.
One advantage of Milenkovic is that he is also skilled as a right back and could therefore cover Aaron Wan-Bissaka. So it could be that if both Eric Bailly and Diogo Dalot, who is on loan at AC Milan, move this summer, United could move in for both Varane and Milenkovic, providing a massive upgrade to defensive options that are currently available. .
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