Manchester United are said to have made a big-money move to sign Benfica’s Darwin Nunez.
The Red Devils have already confirmed that five senior players will leave the club at the end of the month on free transfers, with a number of other players set to follow out of the exit door as the Old Trafford outfit oversee wholesale changes.
Paul Pogba, Juan Mata, Jesse Lingard, Nemanja Matic and Edinson Cavani are already confirmed to be leaving, while there are doubts over the likes of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Phil Jones, Eric Bailly, and Anthony Martial.
With Mason Greenwood unavailable for the foreseeable, Martial and Cavani’s departure will leave Manchester United with a threadbare front line, with only Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Anthony Elanga the current options.
New United boss, Erik ten Hag, is understandably keen to bolster his attacking options ahead of the new season, with reports in recent weeks linking the club to the likes of Benfica’s Darwin Nunez and RB Leipzig’s Christopher Nkunku.
According to Portuguese outlet Correio da Manhã (as per Sport Witness), United have now made an opening offer to Benfica worth up to €105 million (£89.8m) in their pursuit of Uruguay forward, Nunez.
They claim that United’s offer is for an initial payment of €75 million (£64m), with a further €20m (£17m) in achievable addons, with the remaining €10m related to the loan of a player – with Andreas Pereira having been named as an option.
The report says that while the offer would meet Benfica’s demand for a €100m+ deal, it isn’t necessarily set to be accepted, with the Eagles set to analyse it and hope for an improvement.
It remains to be seen as to how reliable the report is, though with less just over three weeks until Ten Hag gets his players together for the start of pre-season, it seems as though United could be starting to make moves as they look to strengthen this summer.
Nunez netted 34 goals in 41 appearances for Benfica last season, including six in 10 outings in the Champions League.
Read – Player Analysis: Why exactly could Darwin Nunez be a generational talent?
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