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Reports in France suggest that Sir Alex Ferguson is keen to bring in Bordeaux’s Marouane Chamakh and Marseille’s Benoit Cheyrou.

The Manchester United manager was said to have been impressed with Chamakh’s performances against Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League in recent weeks – in which the striker scored in the 2-0 win at the Allianz Arena last week.

The 25-year-old was strongly linked with moves to Arsenal and West Ham in the summer but could now sign a new deal with Les Girondinsin the coming weeks.

Cheyrou, younger brother of former Liverpool midfielder Bruno, was rumoured to have been watched by Red Devils scouts during last weekend’s thrilling 5-5 draw at Lyon.

The 28-year-old defensive midfielder has a contract until 2013 but Marseille could look to cash in on the player to fund prospective targets in January. (Sky Sports)

Sir Alex appears to want to add more strength in depth to his squad as they look to try to knock Chelsea from their perch and mount a successful Champions League campaign and with that in mind both players cited in this report could be handy additions to the Man United squad.

Benoit Cheyrou is the kind of midfielder who is strong in the tackle and also adept at moving the ball forwards and has good vision and a great footballing brain but amazingly is still uncapped by the French national team despite performing wonderfully well for both Auxerre and now Marseille in recent seasons. His current club will not allow him to leave on the cheap and are thought to be looking for a fee in the region of £9m for his services.

Marouane Chamakh has been trailed by the likes of Arsenal and West Ham for the best part of a year and his contract comes to an end at French champions Bordeaux in the summer so Laurent Blanc’s side would gladly take any fee they could get for the Moroccan in January to avoid the possibility of losing the striker for nothing in the summer. Only a nominal fee would be required, somewhere in the region of £3m, to acquire his services.

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The Rumour

The representatives of Marseille midfielder Benoit Cheyrou have been in touch with Premiership clubs.

The Times says Liverpool and Juventus have been offered Cheyrou, who is the younger brother of former Reds midfielder Bruno Cheyrou.

Blackburn and Bolton have also been linked with the French winger.

The Source: (The Times as reported on tribalfootball.com)

The Analysis

I think it’s fair to say that Bruno Cheyrou, Benoit’s older brother, did not exactly cover himself in glory during his stuttering spell at Anfield, however the Marseille midfielder is an entirely different kettle of fish to the former Liverpool flop.

28 year old midfielder has been a model of consistency over the past two seasons at the Stade Venodome and is alerting the attention of many big name clubs and also on the verge of a long overdue international call-up. Cheyrou played an integral part in the club’s title challenge last term which went down to the final weekend.

Able to ping out impressive long passes and with a fair amount of vision as well as the ability to get stuck in he could prove a wise acquistion by Rafa Beniez, even more so if he were to lose any of his current crop of central midfielders.

The Likelihood

Cheyrou to Liverpool: Wouldn’t be an earth shattering purchase but may be on Rafa’s radar.

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