Manchester United have shown more ambition in the first few months under INEOS than they have in the past few years under the Glazers, though they did make the mistake of entrusting the start of their era to Erik ten Hag, who had led the club to its worst finish in the Premier League era last season.
Nevertheless, Manchester United have righted their wrong by firing Ten Hag and giving the future to Ruben Amorim, one of the most acclaimed up-and-coming managers in world football.
Amorim has a talented squad to work with, as the club signed Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui, Manuel Ugarte, Joshua Zirkzee and Leny Yoro this past summer to add to a core that already included Kobbie Mainoo, Alejandro Garnacho, Bruno Fernandes, Marcus Rashford, Amad Diallo, Lisandro Martinez, Diogo Dalot, Andre Onana, and Rasmus Hojlund.
While there is hope that Amorim can immediately lift Manchester United from the bottom half of the table, where they lay to rest as a result of further mismanagement from that watch guy, the prevailing belief is that more help is needed.
In particular, Manchester United are still lacking in star power up front, because even though they have a group of talented young players, Fernandes is the only one with a consistent track record of success.
According to a report from L’Equipe’s Jose Barroso, Manchester United are making a very interesting play for an experienced star within the Premier League, as they have made a formal inquiry to Chelsea for center forward Christopher Nkunku.
Although injuries have prevented Nkunku from breaking out at Stamford Bridge, he’s shown more than few moments of class at Chelsea and has been good for the Blues despite being overshadowed by the new top star in town, playmaker Cole Palmer.
Nkunku himself was one of the world’s best playmakers just a few years ago at RB Leipzig, pushing Timo Werner to superstar status and a Chelsea transfer during his first season at the club in 2019/20.
Two years later, Nkunku would be the big star in town and earn a future Chelsea move, ranking among the Ballon d’Or contenders as he moved from a No. 10 to a No. 9 role.
Concerningly, Nkunku has shown that, like Werner, he is no true striker at the Premier League level, but, well, Manchester United will already know that and have two strikers already on their roster in Hojlund and Zirkzee with potentially a third coming in Amorim’s Sporting CP crown jewel Viktor Gyokeres.
Nkunku remains a world-class player and is in the prime of his career at 26. Class is permanent, and, again, Nkunku has shown that class at Chelsea. Because of that, it’s difficult to envision Chelsea being open to selling, especially with the club in position to return to the Champions League next season.
That said, L’Equip portray an air of unrest around Nkunku’s situation in London, which may very well be true; he’s not playing in his best role or putting up the numbers we saw from him in Leipzig.
So Manchester United would be wise to keep their ears to the streets and see if, like Arsenal, they can land a former Bundesliga superstar in the hybrid 9/10 role from Stamford Bridge.
