With Matteo Darmian and Antonio Valencia both capable of playing at right-back, you wouldn’t think the position would be an urgent point of concern for José Mourinho, but Gianluca Di Marzio says it is.
According to the Italian journalist on Sunday evening, Manchester United are still interested in Monaco’s Brazilian right-back Fabinho.
Strongly linked with both the red and the blue side of Manchester last summer, the 22-year-old eventually ended up staying in the south of France for an extra year.
However, the player’s options this time around are much more varied and this could be the end of his time in Ligue 1.
Di Marzio claims that Napoli in Serie A are the favourites to land the player, after Aurelio De Laurentiis told La Republicca on Sunday he had contacted Monaco about Fabinho, but both Manchester United and Barcelona are also reportedly after him.
The latter’s interest makes a lot of sense considering Dani Alves’ impending departure from the Catalan club, whereas Manchester United’s could simply be the club keeping an eye on him in case Antonio Valencia were to be allowed to leave.
L’Equipe on Monday also report this interest from Napoli, but don’t mention either Barcelona’s or Manchester United’s interest, simply stating the player was close to joining Manchester City for €25m last summer instead.
Originally going for Sime Vrsaljko from Sassuolo, it seems Napoli’s interest has turned elsewhere to strengthen their defence.
As for the other two, we’ll be keeping an eye on any further mentions in the coming weeks.
The 22-year-old is currently with Brazil’s national team at the Copa America, and we doubt any move will be finalised before the player returns from the international competition.
