Manchester United Interested In New Ajax Target To Bolster Defence

Manchester United are reportedly looking at three current Ajax players as potential summer signings, in a bid to boost the squad at the club.

As has been the story for much of the summer, new Manchester United boss Erik ten Hag has continued to look at his former club for potential transfer targets, and according to new reports this will continue to be the case. 

It has been reported by Simon Jones of the Mail Online that Ten Hag has identified three of the current Ajax squad as players he would like to bring to his new club. 

Antony and Lisandro Martinez who have been heavily linked with the club already this summer remain part of the group.

But also Jones names Nicolas Tagliafico in his list of United targets.

Tagliafico is under contract with Ajax until 2023 (Image: Alamy)

This marks the first time this window that Tagliafico has been linked with the club, he has however been previously linked with United in years gone by.

The 29-year-old left-back has spent the last five years of his career at the Amsterdam based side, making 115 league appearances.

In each of those five seasons, he has played in over 50% of Ajax’s league games on all but one occasion. 

Whilst this marks the first time United have been linked with Tagliafico this year, he has already been linked with another Premier League club. 

Fellow Mail Online reporter Tom Collomosse has revealed that newly-promoted Nottingham Forest registered an interest in the Argentinian left back earlier this week.

Though no price tag has been quoted for Tagliafico as of the time of writing, it should be noted that the defender only has two years left on his current deal.

Additionally, though he did make 22 appearances last season in the Eredivisie, only nine of them were as a starter. Instead, former Manchester United man Daley Blind regularly started at left back. 

It remains to be seen how the potential signing of Tagliafico could impact the rest of Manchester United’s squad. 

Brandon Williams has reportedly already been told he can leave the club in this transfer window, but that still leaves the issue of United already having two left-backs in Alex Telles and Luke Shaw.

Alamy

Whilst Telles was originally signed as a back-up to Shaw, the former finished last season with just one less start in the Premier League than the Englishman. This came after Shaw suffered both a run of poor form, as well as a series of injury setbacks. Additionally, alongside Shaw and Telles, United still have Diogo Dalot.

Dalot has shown his versatility at both left and right-back, also started games on the left side last season. 

With United also looking to sell Aaron Wan-Bissaka this season, perhaps the team would be better off spending their limited resources on support for the right-side of the defence.