According to the Evening Standard via Vito Angele for the Italian Football Podcast, Manchester United are the ‘favourites’ to sign Boubakary Soumare from Lille.
Angele, an Italian journalist, was discussing the central midfielder’s chances of a move to Italy amid links to AC Milan and offered some big insight into the 21-year-old’s future.
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Angele reports that the Red Devils are already ‘working on’ the transfer of Soumare, before adding that France Under-21s starlet would command a ‘price’ that is simply too ‘high’ for Milan to shell out.
The Evening Standard note that the talent that left Paris Saint-Germain for more first-team opportunities – which has proved to be the right decision – has just 18 months left on his current contract.
Whilst Lille sit third in Ligue 1 after a solid start to the season, Soumare’s rising profile – and perhaps a call to link up with France’s senior squad in the near future giving his fine displays – seems to already be yielding interest from some of the world’s biggest clubs, leaving Lille possibly resigned to him leaving.
Here’s what Angele had to say on the interest in Soumare:
“He is an important player but I don’t think he will be coming to Serie A.”
“Man Utd are working on him and they are the favourites to sign him right now. Lille are also asking a high price for him which is too much for Milan.”
Soumare’s been involved in Lille’s first-team ever since he left PSG in the summer of 2017, but he’s now become a key figure for the side and a trusted player in the middle of the park.
Soumare has made 22 appearances across all competitions so far this season, but has started in just half of these, so he perhaps may not be ready for a big club like United or Milan just yet.
The Frenchman mostly features in a defensive midfield role, but can be deployed in a more traditional role in central midfield as well.
As I’ve noted before, as exciting as Soumare may be, United simply have too many options in the middle of the park right now, they’d be better off strengthening elsewhere at this moment in time.
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer already has Fred, Scott McTominay, the view-splitting and constantly speculated upon Paul Pogba, Nemanja Matic and summer recruit Donny van de Beek to call on in this area.
If Pogba’s time at United is nearing it’s end, like Mino Raiola stated last month, then an addition in the middle of the park would make sense – but Soumare’s a completely different style of (defensive-minded) player to the superstar, so he wouldn’t really be a replacement at all in that sense.