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Lisandro Martinez endured another tough outing for Manchester United on his return to the starting line-up at Sunderland.<\/p>\n
United kept a clean sheet away from home, largely due to Senne Lammens\u2018 heroics. Martinez, meanwhile, looked rusty in possession and was bullied by Brian Brobbey all afternoon.<\/p>\n
Martinez\u2019s lack of availability and composure when playing over the last 24 months should raise alarm bells at Old Trafford. Interestingly, a report in Italy suggests that INEOS are keen on bringing in another central defender this summer.<\/p>\n
According to Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport (via Sport Witness), Manchester United are keen on AC Milan\u2019s Strahinja Pavlovic, who has emerged as one of Serie A\u2019s most dominant centre-backs.<\/p>\n
Signed from\u00a0RB Salzburg in 2024, the 2001-born defender has become an undisputed leader of Massimiliano Allegri\u2019s defence in Milan.<\/p>\n
The 6\u20194\u2033 Serbian behemoth has been compared to United legend Nemanja Vidic, owing to his imposing style of play. However, he is surprisingly calm with the ball at his feet. The left-footed defender has also scored five goals in Serie A.<\/p>\n
The publication claims Michael Carrick\u2019s side are \u201con his trail\u201d and are \u201cabove all\u201d in the race.<\/p>\n
Chelsea are also thought to be in the race to sign Pavlovic, who is valued at \u20ac50 million (\u00a343.2m). Both Premier League giants have allegedly made enquiries for the Serbian. <\/p>\n
Casemiro\u2019s departure at the end of the season will leave Harry Maguire as the only physically imposing figure in both boxes for the Red Devils. In that regard, Pavlovic is certainly capable of adding more steel and structure to the side in Manchester.<\/p>\n
Maguire has been handed a new deal. However, recently,\u00a0The Athletic\u2019s Andy Mitten suggested Martinez\u2019s position at United is \u201cin a little bit of a state of flux.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mitten believes the technically gifted Martinez \u201cneeds to be playing all of the time\u201d to win a new contract at United. The 28-year-old will enter the final year of his deal this summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone comes in from in the summer then Manchester United have to weigh that up as well,\u201d added Mitten.<\/p>\n
Feature image Marco Luzzani via Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n The Peoples Person has been one of the world\u2019s leading Man United news sites for over a decade. Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 62 Lisandro Martinez endured another tough outing for Manchester United on his return to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7712","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\/7712","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=7712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}