The Manchester United & Aston Villa transfer target who could be the next big thing – or a January pipe dreamplaceholder image
The Manchester United & Aston Villa transfer target who could be the next big thing – or a January pipe dream | Getty Images
Manchester United, Aston Villa and Bournemouth all share a January transfer target - but will they actually be able to sign him?
Not every club will get what they want this January. Whether it’s due to financial pressures or club simply being unwilling to sell key players in the middle of the season, it isn’t always easy to do transfer business over the winter. Manchester United and Aston Villa may be among the clubs who will soon find that out.
According to several sources in the Italian media, they are among a number of teams who are keen on 22-year-old Sassuolo centre-back Tarik Muharemović, one of the breakthrough stars of Serie A this season – but why are so many sides keen on the young defender, and why might a January deal prove tricky for any of them to pull off?
Why Manchester United & Aston Villa are among the teams monitoring Tarik Muharemović
Different media sources have different lists of suitors for Muharemović, although all agree that there are plenty of them. Gazzetta dello Sport claims that Manchester United, Aston Villa and Bournemouth are all keen. Football Italia has Villa and Inter Milan down as the primary interest parties. All that can be said with any certainty is that he’ll be on the move before long.
That’s because Sassuolo chief executive Giovanni Carnevali has openly admitted that the Italian outfit have received contact from “several clubs” in an interview which was primarily intended to ward bidders off, at least for now. Sassuolo, newly promoted back to the Italian top flight, are keen to ensure that their mid-table status sticks and that survival is guaranteed before they let their most expensive assets go.
Bosnia & Herzegovina international Muharemović has become one of those off the back of an extremely impressive run of form at the club. Having helped them to promotion from Serie B last season while on loan from Juventus, he has established himself as one of the best centre-halves in the division since the summer, a consistently reliable presence in Sassuolo’s back line.
His defensive positioning has drawn particular attention. Despite his relative inexperience – he never made a senior appearance for Juventus before leaving and has fewer than 50 professional league games under his belt – Muharemović shares the knack the best defenders have of being precisely where he needs to be to handle balls into the box or to block off a ball carrier as they look to surge forward.
Tall and strong but perhaps not remarkably so, Muharemović is good in the air, technically sound and excellent in one-on-one situations, but doesn’t have many natural attributes which make him stand out compared to his peers – it’s his reading of the game which makes him so highly sought-after, rather than his natural qualities or his ball skills.
Between his youth and his defensive nous, it’s understandable that several teams are keen on him, and Manchester United and Aston Villa may well be among them. But do any of them have a chance of signing him in January, or will Sassuolo get their way?
Will Muharemović leave Serie A this January?
Certainly Sassuolo’s position, established via Carnevali, appears to be straightforward enough – that Muharemović isn’t for sale in the immediate future.
“We will not sell him in January,” Carnevali said. “We’ve had contact from several clubs, he has a high value… We don’t want to sell our most important players.”
Muharemović certainly qualifies as one of those. Sassuolo’s position, seven places and 10 points clear of the relegation zone, seems safe enough, but unless it improves even further by the end of January the club will be understandably wary of selling assets while there’s still a risk of tumbling back into the second tier.
It won’t help Aston Villa or Manchester United’s chances that neither club is an especially strong position with regards to the Premier League’s PSR rules. United have some money to spend but are not expected to prioritise the defence, with goals the immediate priority. Villa, meanwhile, barely escaped sanctions over the summer and had to jump through some financial loopholes to get on an even keel. A deal for a player like Muharemović is only realistic if someone else is sold.
Gazzetta dello Sport report that Muharemović’s asking price is around €30m (£26m), with Sassuolo hopeful that he can continue performing well and push that number up even higher by the summer. It’s not a price tag out of reach of Premier League sides, but of the three mentioned in connection with the player so far, only Bournemouth are likely to have the ready money, and replacing Antoine Semenyo is a more urgent priority down in Dorset.
Complicating matters further is the fact that Juventus apparently have a 50% sell-on clause baked into Muharemović’s contract from the budget-friendly deal which sent him to Sassuolo last year. With some outlets suggesting they could use that to leverage a deal to sign him back for themselves, there’s a chance that other clubs in the running could be at a major negotiating disadvantage compared to a bidding rival.
Either way, the early indications are that clubs like United and Villa will have to wait until the summer, and that a January deal is more of a pipe dream than anything else – but this wouldn’t be the first player to move when all signals suggested he would stay put. Muharemović is a rising star of Serie A, and Premier League clubs won’t take their eyes off him any time soon.
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