Man Utd transfer blow as Liverpool overtake them in race to sign Boubakary Soumare and Newcastle ready with £35m bid

MANCHESTER UNITED have suffered a blow in their chances of signing midfielder Boubakary Soumare as Liverpool enter the race, according to reports.

Boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was hopeful of landing the highly-rated Lille midfielder as a replacement for wantaway Paul Pogba.

The Red Devils were considering making a move in January but opted to wait until the summer before the coronavirus pandemic brought the season to a temporary halt.

And their decision to delay could backfire with Premier League rivals Liverpool consider making their move.

Manager Jurgen Klopp is a huge admirer and held tentative talks over the France under-21 international last summer – but Soumare wanted to see out the season in France.

Now he’s ready to step up his chase as he targets landing a new midfielder in the summer.

Newcastle made an audacious £35million bid in January but the player turned down Steve Bruce’s advances.

And transfer expert Duncan Castle expects the Toon to rival the league’s big boys by making another move.

He said on the Transfer Window podcast: “I can tell you that Newcastle United have again made an offer for Soumare for the summer window, whenever that will open.

“I’m told that their offer is for €40m, not as high as they offered in January but I think that is going to be something we see throughout this next transfer market, that transfer fees will come down because there is significantly less money in the game of football because of the coronavirus epidemic.

“Basically none of the clubs can tell how much less money they’re going to operate with because they don’t know when they’re going to be playing again and they don’t know what future broadcasting contracts are going to be as a result of the damage the pandemic has caused to the sport.

“I’m also told that of the many other clubs interested in Soumare, Liverpool are one of those clubs.

“They’ve been watching the player I’m told for two years now and rate him highly, have been in contact with the player’s representatives to do their due diligence.”

Magpies boss Bruce said at the time: “We had a bid accepted that would have been near enough a club record but the player didn’t want to come.

“We got past the club but unfortunately the player wanted to stay where he was.”

Since then, however, Soumare has fallen out of favour in Ligue 1.

Prior to the suspension of the league, he had not started a match since before Newcastle’s bid.

In fact, he wasn’t even summoned from the bench for six matches in a row – before making a seven-minute cameo against Lyon in the final match before the suspension.