£75m striker gives Manchester United hope as he admits he’d ‘like’ move to England

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Lois Openda has handed Manchester United a potential £75 million transfer boost with the RB Leipzig striker admitting that he ‘would like to play’ in the Premier League.

We present to you reason number 4,526 why Manchester United need an elite director of football.

Had the Red Devils taken a punt on Lois Openda last summer – after a fine season at Lens – they could have got him for around £33 million. A few months down the line, Leipzig would demand more than double for that very same player, Openda blossoming from a £33 million centre-forward into a £75 million one following a flying start at a Red Bull-powered club who, as the saying goes, gives talented young players their wings. 

Manchester United eye Lois Openda

According to The Mirror, Manchester United have made Openda a ‘serious target’ after his two-goal showing away at the Etihad in the Champions League group-stages in November.

Of course, if United had a proper structure in place behind the scenes, they could have cut out the middle man – in this case Leipzig – and signed Openda directly from Lens. One can only hope that the potential appointment of a Paul Mitchell, a Lee Congerton or an Andrea Berta will bring about a long-awaited streamlining of United’s often misguided transfer strategy.

Openda, for his part, is ‘open’ to the idea of following fellow Red Bull graduates Sadio Mane, Timo Werner, Dominik Szoboszlai to England at some point in the future.

“I’m open to everything,” the jet-heeled Belgium international tells BILD. “Maybe one day I’d like to play in England or Spain.”

Openda in top form

Openda has 14 goals in 22 Leipzig appearances already.  Like Werner, the former Chelsea man relegated to the RB bench, Openda would give Erik ten Hag’s misfiring frontline a different dimension.

The former Vitesse Arnhem loanee, who once scored twice against Ten Hag’s Ajax, is at his most effective when racing in behind and latching onto the kind of through balls Bruno Fernandes, for instance, has long since made his trademark.