Manchester United are among the clubs who have been credited with an interest in Lille midfielder Carlos Baleba.
That is according to 90Min, who claim United have sent their scouts to watch the 19-year-old this season.
The report says that domestic rivals Arsenal, Liverpool, Leicester, West Ham and Newcastle are also sniffing around, while there is competition from abroad too.
AC Milan tried to buy the teenager in January, with Juventus, Nice and Monaco all keen on a potential summer swoop.
Manchester United linked with Carlos Baleba
The report says that Lille view Baleba in the same way they viewed Amadou Onana before they sold him to Everton last summer.
That means he would cost upwards of £30 million for any club who wants to buy him this summer on the back of his breakout year.
That’s lot of money for someone with 18 appearances this season, and United would likely be looking at a more experienced option in the summer.
Erik ten Hag has taken a grip of United’s recruitment, and if he wants a player, he deserves the trust of the fans but there are likely to be higher priority targets.
That said, Lille teammate Remy Cabella has called Baleba an ‘incredible‘ player with outstanding strength and power in midfield.
Lauded also as a very ‘powerful’ player by Lille teammate Jonathan David, his coach Paulo Fonseca also lauded Baleba as being ‘the future of the club’.
Paul Pogba is among the players Baleba grew up idolising, according to an interview from January this year, so perhaps the chance to join United would appeal.
Ultimately, this one seems like a watching brief for now, but it will be interesting to see where he ends up with so many clubs supposedly interested.
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