Spanish news outlet, Don Balon claims that Manchester United are looking to pry away Sevilla’s Clement Lenglet right from underneath the nose of Barcelona’s Ernesto Valverde. Jose Mourinho has already expressed heavy interest in Samuel Umtiti and is willing to take his summer plans further by signing the Sevilla centre-back.
For now, the Frenchman is being considered by Mourinho as a long-term centre-back partner to Eric Bailly. Chris Smalling and Phil Jones have struggled to meet the standards of a title-challenging squad. Ever since the Ivory Coast international got sidelined with an injury, the English duo featured heavily for the first team and made some of the silliest of errors.
The former FC Porto manager has been reported to have been preparing an offloading-plan in order to bolster the backline with players like Lenglet.
Lenglet has been capped 41 times for the France youth teams, 10 of them were registered for the U21 squad. He only signed with Sevilla back in July 2017 from Ligue 1 outfit, Nancy for a meagre €5m fee. And by the looks of it all, the investment has paid off ten folds for the La Liga outfit who are well poised to finish the season in the top half of the table.
The young centre-back has been key in their starting lineup with 49 total appearances and 4 goals in his debut season.
Lenglet’s arrival has solidified the Sevilla backline and has led the team to Copa Del Rey Final and a Quarter Final finish in the UEFA Champions League, mostly attributed to his remarkable game reading abilities.
The Manchester United faithful got to see the 22-year-old in full force against their own side at Old Trafford last month. Both teams matched up for the UEFA Champions League Quarter Finals and Sevilla ended up winning it by 2 goals to 1 in the second leg.
Lenglet was outstanding on the night and proved his great European pedigree against the physically imposing United team. Jose Mourinho’s style of play heavily relies on aerial dominance with balls launched from the wide areas towards the lone striker. And even with the massive Romelu Lukaku fighting for every possession, Lenglet came out on top majority of times and helped his side to the next round of the competition.
Obviously signing would greatly benefit the Red Devils in their ambitions of upstaging Manchester City to the Premier League title next season. But I have a feeling that the transfer will only be sanctioned if the Umtiti-moves ends up falling through.
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Somehow, both of them hinges on the other and we will just have wait for the summer to see who boards the flight to Manchester.
