It doesn’t matter if Manchester United have five, six or seven centre-backs in their squad, it always seems like they need to reinforce the position every summer transfer window.
Harry Maguire was purchased in 2019 for a record fee of £80m, which led to Chris Smalling and Marcos Rojo being sent out on loan, leaving Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with a choice of five first-team defenders as Phil Jones, Victor Lindelöf, Eric Bailly and Axel Tuanzebe fought for that coveted slot alongside the England international.
That isn’t enough, it seems, as centre-backs constantly get linked with a move to Old Trafford, with names such as Kalidou Koulibaly reportedly topping the list at Carrington.
We’ll believe when we see it, but an old flame has apparently been relit, at least according to Corriere dello Sport, as Nikola Milenković returns to the fore in the transfer rumour mill.
The Italian newspaper explain how the Serbian has caught the eye of many big clubs with his performances at Fiorentina, but while he might be courted, the Serie A side have no intention of letting him leave.
Manchester United, Juventus, Napoli, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid have apparently all decided the 22-year-old should be a part of their ‘expansion projects’, but Rocco Commiso, the club’s owner, wants the centre-back to stay.
Corriere say his value might be rising, growing to ‘ten, twenty, thirty million’, but all interest has ‘crashed into an insurmountable obstacle’: Fiorentina’s reluctance to sell.
It could be even more than that, as back in November, La Republicca stated the Italians valued him at ‘over €40m’, so it would be easy to imagine Commiso asking for that much should clubs come knocking.
Either way, it seems like it would take a lot of convincing, and it might be effort best utilised elsewhere for Manchester United.
