One of the nice surprises under Paulo Fonseca at Lille this season, was his more extensive use of Carlos Baleba in the first-team.
Often coming on from the bench, the 19-year-old ended up making 19 Ligue 1 appearances this season, with a couple of full games at the end of the season.
That’s why a few Premier League sides, including Manchester United and Newcastle United are looking at him for a potential transfer this summer, according to La Voix des Sports.
They are two of four clubs from England’s top tier who have ‘ticked the name’ of Baleba for this summer, and ‘would be ready to put €30m’ on the table to sign him from Lille.
The outlet then name Manchester United and Newcastle as being among the ‘most insistent’, and while the player’s entourage refused to corroborate the names of the club, they did ‘confirm the amount of the potential fee’.
Should this go through, with a big offer potentially on the way, it would be a similar situation to that of Amadou Onana, who wasn’t always a regular but still earned himself a big transfer to England.
He then started to shine at Everton, with Manchester United and Newcastle clearly hoping Baleba could do something similar if they were to spend heavily on him.
Something to keep an eye on, but the newspaper do state that we might need to ‘wait a few weeks’ to see what happens.