{"id":19990,"date":"2026-07-22T10:29:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=19990"},"modified":"2026-07-22T10:29:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T10:29:54","slug":"man-utd-told-they-will-get-a-complete-midfielder-whos-a-joy-to-watch-if-they-push-ahead-with-51m-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=19990","title":{"rendered":"Man Utd Told They Will Get A &#8220;Complete Midfielder Who&#8217;s A Joy To Watch&#8221; If They Push Ahead With \u00a351M Bid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<article>\n<p><strong>Former Real Madrid and Tottenham midfielder Rafael van der Vaart has backed Man Utd to sign Roma\u2019s Manu Kone.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Red Devils are reportedly interested in recruiting the France international, and speaking to <em>AceOdds.com<\/em>van der Vaart said that he will be an ideal replacement for Casemiro:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cManu Kone has surprised me for sure. I hadn\u2019t seen much of him except some highlights at this World Cup; I\u2019ve been really impressed by his confidence. He\u2019s strong with the ball and without it. He\u2019s coming into the box, getting chances to score. Complete midfielder who\u2019s a joy to watch.\u201d<\/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>\u201cI also think Man Utd need a player like him. They had Casemiro, who was a little bit older. So yeah, I think they could use a player like him. I would have bought him yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Kone has interest from 2 other Premier League clubs<\/h2>\n<p>French publication <em>The Team<\/em> have confirmed that United are keen on securing the 25-year-old\u2019s services, but Michael Carrick\u2019s side will have competition for the player.<\/p>\n<p>They claim that \u201ctwo other Premier League clubs\u201d have also registered their interest in Kone, although the identity of the teams is not known. Reports in Italy have named Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea as potential suitors in recent days.<\/p>\n<h2>Will Man Utd match his asking price?<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" v=\"f216f6d5d0b6ef819f6e02bf8357cefd\" image-id=\"WmOBO4fFRZ0Q\" theme=\"iy-theme\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; aspect-ratio: 1.5001668335001668; max-width: 4496px;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>Sources in the UK have subsequently verified <em>The Team<\/em>\u2018s reporting that the Red Devils have held discussions with Kone\u2019s representatives, but there is no agreement with Roma on a transfer fee.<\/p>\n<p>Before the World Cup, the Giallorossi were believed to be happy to sell the Frenchman for \u20ac50m (\u00a343m), but following his performances at  the tournament, the price tag has subsequently increased to <strong>\u20ac60m (\u00a351m)<\/strong>. It remains to be seen if United will pay that much for him.<\/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>Former Real Madrid and Tottenham midfielder Rafael van der Vaart has backed Man Utd to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19990","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\/19990","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=19990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}