Reports in France have suggested that neither Man Utd nor Liverpool have given up their chase of Lille winger Nicolas Pepe as of yet.
The 24-year-old enjoyed a stellar campaign last year, scoring 23 goals and providing 12 assists in 41 appearances across all competitions, with the majority of those outings seeing him deployed in his favoured position on the right wing.
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Interest from United and Liverpool is nothing new, as The Mirror reports that the Premier League giants are keen on the Ivorian international, but they will be under increasing pressure to make their move to try and agree terms with Lille as a European rival is said to have launched a huge bid.
As per the Metro, L’Equipe have claimed that Inter have made a €90m offer to sign Pepe this summer, as they clearly have ambitious plans under Antonio Conte next season.
With that in mind, both Man Utd and Liverpool could risk falling behind in the transfer battle as that is a significant amount of money to be splashing out, particularly for the latter when they already have Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah in the wide positions at Anfield.
Nevertheless, as noted in the tweet below from GFFN, local paper La Voix du Nord have since claimed that both the Red Devils and Merseyside giants have not given up on Pepe and it’s suggested that Man Utd in particular are still weighing up their options as they want to build an ‘ambitious squad’ next season.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will be desperate to bring in new signings to stamp his mark on the squad and get United back into the Champions League next year.
Having already signed Daniel James this month though, coupled with the likes of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Alexis Sanchez, Jesse Lingard and Juan Mata already at his disposal, the Norwegian tactician will surely have to offload a player first in order to make room for Pepe to start, should a deal be agreed.
Hyper-reliable local paper La Voix du Nord on Nicolas Pépé: "Liverpool & Manchester United have not had their last word. Especially the Manchester club, who want to build an ambitious squad for next season."
— Get French Football News (@GFFN) June 23, 2019