Everyone at Manchester United is all too aware of the size of the rebuilding job that the club are currently undergoing.
More dropped points at the weekend mean the club remain 15th in the Premier League table as they remain on course for their worst finish of the modern era, as new boss Ruben Amorim struggles to get any momentum going.
Cost-cutting exercises are continuing off the pitch, with the club announcing on Monday that up to 200 jobs will be made redundant, while the playing squad also needs serious work in the next few transfer windows.
Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim linked with reunion with teenager
The club’s recent record in the transfer market has been poor, with a number of costly mistakes made, resulting in ageing players on hefty wage packets that they are now trying to offload.
Since Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his Ineos team took over the football operations side of the business last year, the club have looked to bring in younger players and the latest starlet to be linked has been talked up by one of their cross-town rivals Manchester City’s best players of the last few years.
Bernardo Silva has been one of Pep Guardiola’s favourite players during the club’s recent run of four consecutive title wins and the kind of player any team would like to have - so when the player himself talks up a young talent as his potential successor, teams would be well-placed to sit up and listen.
The player to catch Silva’s eye is 17-year-old right-winger Geovany Quenda, who previously worked with Amorim at Sporting.
“He will probably steal my place,” was Silva’s verdict after seeing him break into the Sporting first-team. “At 17, I wasn't even playing for Benfica's youth team.”
Quenda became Sporting’s youngest-ever goalscorer in October when Amorim was still at the club, and according to transfer expert Fabrizio Romano, the boss has given Manchester United the green light to finalise a deal this summer.
A further report from talkSPORT claims personal terms have been ‘verbally agreed’, with Manchester United hoping to less than the £50million pricetag that the Portuguese side have slapped on the teenager.
In FourFourTwo’s view, Quenda - who is valued by Transfermarkt at €30million - fits the profile of the kind of player that the club should be looking to build around. If the Old Trafford hierachy are serious in backing Amorim, they will value his opinion and the fact that he has previously worked with the youngster.
But given Quenda’s promise, the comparisons to Silva and Manchester United’s reluctance to meet Sporting’s asking price, the club may have to be prepared to go up against some of Europe’s biggest sides in the race for his signature.
