Reports: Manchester United leading four-way Premier League chase for $48m midfielder

What's the rumour?

As reported in the Mirror, Manchester United are leading a four-way Premier League chase that includes Manchester City, Chelsea, and Liverpool for OGC Nice midfielder Jean-Michel Seri, who has a buyout clause of €40 million (or £35 million, or $48 million)

Seri, an attacking midfielder, was famously compared to Xavi before being complimented by the great Catalan himself: "When I was told that a player from Nice was called the 'African Xavi', I followed him very closely," Xavi told Le Parisien. "I didn't know [Seri] and I was entranced. I'm not used to seeing such talent in midfield anymore. The short game, long game, tactical intelligence, long-range shooting, personality, organisation of the play... Madre mia! He would do so well at Barca. He can play anywhere in the middle. He is fantastic. He has what they call the Barca DNA. No doubt."

In case you didn't know

Seri was set to join Barca this summer before the Catalans inexplicably pulled out of the deal leaving the young midfielder shattered, as per Nice's President Jean-Pierre Rivere "It was basically a done deal. If I put myself in Seri's shoes it's very tough. He was close to his dream move to Barça, but it was shattered overnight".

The heart of the matter

The report here suggests that Seri, who is comfortable anywhere in central midfield (not just attacking), would like to move to the Premier League (an unsubstantiated statement, I hasten to add) and all four top clubs are said to be looking at him as a replacement to potential departures (and one who hasn't performed as per expectations) with Manchester United looking at him to replace Michael Carrick, Chelsea the underperforming Tiemoue Bakayako, Manchester City the ageing Yaya Toure (and groom him as a successor to Fernandinho) and Liverpool the injury-prone Jordan Henderson (and Emre Can, who's future is undecided with him becoming a free agent this summer).

Rumour reliability/probability

5/10

While the rumour makes sense in that Seri would be a great addition to each of their squads and a £35 million price makes him cheap in this hyper-inflated transfer market, it cannot be held as completely reliable simply because it appears like the newspaper have looked at the Premier League table and simply linked Seri with all of them.

Therefore, as educated guesses go, this is a fairly decent one but it doesn't mean that all these four, or any of these four for that matter, have made contact with either Seri or the Ligue 1 outfit

Video

Here's Seri doing his thing:

Not too shabby, eh?

Author's Take

Great signing if done, as he has the potential to improve every squad mentioned in the report.