Manchester United’s former chief scout believes Chelsea are making progress in their efforts to sign Alejandro Garnacho from the Red Devils.
The winger has been linked with a January move to west London, with United reportedly willing to cash in on his signature before the window closes.
Napoli have also been credited with a desire to land Garnacho, having already seen an opening bid rejected. Chelsea, meanwhile, have been tipped to firm up their interest with Fabrizio Romano claiming they could be about to make their own offer.
Garnacho’s agents, Carlos Cambeiro and Quique De Lucas, were also spotted at Stamford Bridge on Monday evening as Chelsea beat Wolves.
Mick Brown, who spent over a decade at United where he rose to be chief scout, believes the club would prefer to sell to Napoli but has refused to rule out a potential move to Chelsea.
“Chelsea are very interested in him,” Brown told Football Insider. “From what I hear, they’re making progress towards that because he’s the one they want. I don’t think there’s been a bid yet, but there has been a lot of talk about a move.
“They’ve got all this going on behind the scenes with [Mykhaylo] Mudryk and I’m not sure whether he’ll ever play for them again, a bit like we’ve seen with Paul Pogba, so they’re looking to sign a new winger and Garnacho is a name that has come up.
“It looks like Man United are willing to let him go because they want to raise money. I think if they were going to let him go, it would ideally be to a foreign club, but that doesn’t mean to say they’ll turn down an offer from Chelsea if it meets their asking price.”
It remains to be seen if Garnacho will leave United before the end of the January window, with the 20-year-old tied down until the summer of 2028.
He has struggled to adapt to the new system employed by Ruben Amorim and was recently urged to improve by the United boss, who challenged him to ‘play better’ in order to meet expectations.
Quizzed on Garnacho’s situation last week, Amorim said: “He has talent. He needs to learn to play in a different position. He needs to play better inside.
“He improves a lot in the recovering position when he doesn’t have the ball. But doing that, sometimes he’s not in the right place to make transitions like he was in the past. I prefer to defend and then build up with all the team to reach the final third.
“He’s finding the best way to play in this system. He’s improving during training. He started the last game. I think he changed the way he sees himself.”
