{"id":17746,"date":"2026-07-15T22:01:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=17746"},"modified":"2026-07-15T22:01:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:01:38","slug":"man-utd-remain-firmly-in-the-race-to-sign-85m-rated-midfielder-after-latest-transfer-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=17746","title":{"rendered":"Man Utd Remain &#8216;Firmly&#8217; In The Race To Sign \u00a385M Rated Midfielder After Latest Transfer Twist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<article>\n<p><strong>Man Utd are still in contention to buy Lille midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi, according to reports.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>TEAMtalk<\/em> claim that the Red Devils are still \u201cfirmly\u201d in the equation to snap up the teenager following a decision by rivals Manchester City.<\/p>\n<p>Enzo Maresca\u2019s side were deemed favourites to secure Bouaddi\u2019s services, having signalled to Lille that they were willing to loan him back to the Ligue One side.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sra_unit\"><link rel=\"stylesheet\" id=\"block-sra\" href=\"https:\/\/manunews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/snack-related-articles\/dist\/css\/snack-related.min.css?230424-120838\" type=\"text\/css\" media=\"all\"\/>\n<aside class=\"sra-group sra-related-list\">\n<h2 class=\"sra-group-head\">Most Read on ManUNews.com<\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<p>However, it is believed that Director of Football Hugo Viana has now made it clear that City want the player now, which has blown the race for his signature wide open once again.<\/p>\n<h2>5 Premier League clubs want Bouaddi<\/h2>\n<p>The 18-year-old is certainly not short of suitors. In addition to United and City, the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea have also signalled their interest in the player.<\/p>\n<p>Out of the five, <em>TEAMtalk<\/em> report that Chelsea are the ones who would be most willing to loan <strong>Bouaddi<\/strong> back to Lille, which would be his club\u2019s preferred choice.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, the Blues are the only ones without Champions League football, and their prospects of winning the Premier League title in the immediate future look slim.<\/p>\n<h2>Man Utd would have to pay a sizeable sum<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" v=\"f216f6d5d0b6ef819f6e02bf8357cefd\" image-id=\"WmOB09pTUlCD\" theme=\"iy-theme\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; aspect-ratio: 1.499273959341723; max-width: 6195px;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>For a deal to happen this summer, Lille are said to be holding out for a fee in the region of \u20ac100m (\u00a385m). Considering that the deals for Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans were relatively cheap compared to other targets, there is likely to be still room in United\u2019s transfer budget for a significant investment.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, while money may not be an issue, getting the player on board is still a major challenge. Despite City\u2019s change in stance, top sources still regard them as the leading candidates to sign Bouaddi. It remains to be seen if United can change that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Want more news on Man Utd? Add Man U News as a preferred source on Google<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/article><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Man Utd are still in contention to buy Lille midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi, according to reports&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}