Whether or not Manchester United meet Brentford’s asking price for Bryan Mbeumo with a new bid “depends on how bad the manager wants him”, according to one former player. Two bids, of £55million and £60m respectively, have been turned down by the Bees despite the player being keen on a move to Old Trafford.
Brentford are said to be seeking a fee similar to the £62.5m that United paid Wolves for Matheus Cunha and have publicly admitted that they won’t let him leave on a bargain fee. United are hoping to conclude a deal before pre-season gets underway.
And Sharpe, who made nearly 200 appearances for United between 1988 and 1996, thinks that Ruben Amorim’s desire could be key to getting a deal over the line.
“It depends on how bad the manager wants him,” Sharpe told Express Sport with Razed. “If they want him that bad, they will end up paying the price and he brings goals at Brentford in what is a tidy side but not a top of the table or top four dominant team that will create more chances than the opposition.
“His record speaks for itself with plenty of goals, chances created, and he has lots of pace to trouble defences in behind. His work rate is really good and he is happy to track back and do the ugly stuff. He will be hungry and is young which is what United need at the moment.”
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United are ready to call an end to the saga at the end of the week and have reportedly set a deadline to get it done before Monday.
Sharpe also thinks that a new striker would hugely benefit United, with one name at the very top of his wish-list.
“Victor Osimhen has been mentioned, and I would love to see him at the club because he has this air of arrogance and confidence about him,” he added. “He has scored a lot of goals at the top level for Napoli and he is tried and tested. He would slot into a United team really easy.”
There have been concerns over why no top team sealed a deal for Osimhen when he went to Galatasaray on loan last season, but Sharpe thinks that there are very few better goal scorers in world football than the Nigerian striker.
“He went from a top club in Europe and scoring goals to Turkey, which is a step down from the big four or five leagues,” he continued.
“Maybe there’s a different reason we don’t know about, and I know in the Turkish league they can pay a lot of money at times and maybe it was down to that, but we don’t know. From an athlete point of view and a scoring point of view, there’s not many better around the world than him.”