Oscar Gloukh is being tipped to emulate Erling Haaland and Sadio Mane as Premier League giants Manchester United keep tabs on another exciting youngster to emerge through the Red Bull ranks.
When you consider the success Haaland, Mane, Dominik Szoboszlai, Ibrahima Konate, Josko Gvardiol, Benjamin Sesko and co have enjoyed since enrolling in the taurine-powered project, it’s almost impossible to resist a mention of that famous old tagline.
Red Bull, as they say, gives you wings.
A tally of six goals or assists in just 13 games since moving to Salzburg from Maccabi Tel Aviv over the summer, meanwhile, has only increased expectations about 19-year-old Oscar Gloukh potentially following in the footsteps of Haaland and co, The Sun reporting that Manchester United – along with Arsenal and Liverpool – watched the teenage playmaker score for Israel vs Romania during the September international break.
And Gerhard Struber, the head coach of Red Bull Salzburg, has no doubt that a player labelled ‘one of the greatest talents in Europe’ still has a few rungs to climb on the footballing ladder.
Manchester United watch Oscar Gloukh
“I believe he can have a career similar to Erling Holland and Sadio Mane,” Struber, the former Barnsley boss, tells Sport5.
“In addition to his ability to dribble and his nose for goals – these are things we expect from him – there is his game without the ball. His ‘gegenpressing’.
“He presents a great learning curve. He’s a high-profile player and he understands how he’s supposed to play without the ball. We’re very pleased with his development.”
‘One of the greatest talents in Europe’
At the age of just 19, Gloukh’s maturity and his supreme tactical awareness will ease concerns about his ability to make the immediate step up to a club of Manchester United’s size and stature.
Gloukh joined Salzburg over the summer for a cool £6 million. In doing so, he rebuffed the advances of Barcelona, feeling that regular first-team football in Austria would be more beneficial to his development.
“The greatest talent of Israeli football today is, of course, Oscar Gloch,” explains Luis Vicente Matteo, who had a spell coaching at Maccabi Haifa.
“He is not only one of the greatest talents in Israel. He is one of the greatest talents in Europe. (Gloukh) showed that he can play at a high level at Maccabi Tel Aviv. But he needs to take the next step to continue his development and raise his level.”
At Salzburg, he is certainly doing just that.
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