Manchester United have received a major boost in their pursuit of Renato Sanches with Bayern Munich lowering their asking price to £23 million.
According to a report in The Sun, Manchester United are set to have a spring in their step in pursuit of Renato Sanches. The Bayern Munich midfielder is now available for a cut-price £23 million fee in the summer transfer window.
Sanches progressed through the ranks at boyhood club Benfica before making the grade in the first team setup in 2015. All of 17 back then, the player enjoyed a breakthrough campaign with the Portuguese giants before being snapped up by Bayern Munich last summer.
Sanches then vindicated Bayern’s decision to pay a whopping €35 million to sign him by playing an instrumental role in Portugal’s shock triumph in Euro 2016. Thus, he moved to the Allianz Arena with a lot of expectations around him, having been the single hottest property in world football last summer.
However, the player has failed to live up to his billing thus far in Germany and usurp players like Xabi Alonso, Arturo Vidal and Thiago Alcantara for a regular place in the starting lineup. As a result, Sanches started a mere 9 games in the recently concluded season with a further 16 appearances from the bench.
And he is yet to either find the back of the net or register an assist for the Bavarian giants. Consequently, his future is mired in heavy uncertainty just a season into moving to the Allianz Arena. With Bayern also securing the services of Corentin Tolisso, Sanches faces a sizeable task to claim become a regular.
Despite enduring a tough debut campaign with Bayern though, interest hasn’t seemed to die down in Sanches. While the likes of Juventus, Inter Milan and Real Madrid have been linked with the 19-year-old, Manchester United are the front-runners to win the race to sign him a year after they lost out to Bayern.
Indeed, the Red Devils have been following Sanches’s progress for a long time now, with Jose Mourinho admittedly a huge admirer of the player’s talents. The Manchester United boss currently has Paul Pogba, Ander Herrera, Marouane Fellaini and Michael Carrick as his options in midfield.
With Carrick in the twilight years of his career and Fellaini seen as more of a squad player, Sanches is potentially a long-term solution in the centre of the park for Mourinho, should he manage to find his feet again.
And with the Manchester United manager eager to unlock Pogba’s true potential, Sanches could potentially have the opportunity to establish himself as a regular fixture in the first-team setup at Old Trafford.
The Red Devils seem to have received a timely boost in their pursuit of the player, as Bayern have lowered their asking price to £23 million. The aforementioned amount is likely to kick Manchester United into action, meaning we could soon see Sanches making a move to Old Trafford soon.
