Manchester United raise their bid for Joao Felix to €4m, but Atlético Madrid demand €12m

Man­ches­ter Unit­ed have stepped up their offer to sign Atléti­co Madrid star Joao Felix, but are €7m short of ask­ing price.

Felix, 23, is on Unit­ed’s radar after mov­ing Cris­tiano Ronal­do to Al Nasr and miss­ing out on Codi Gakpo.

How­ev­er, secur­ing the Por­tuguese star, who scored in the LaLi­ga Escape match for Madrid, could still take some time.

Rele­vo says it will have to offer near­ly three times the cur­rent amount.

Unit­ed have offered the Span­ish play­er a direct loan of €4m and full wages.

How­ev­er, Diego Sime­one’s side are demand­ing €12m to make him go on loan in January.

These demands could cause prob­lems for both Felix and United.

Felix is cur­rent­ly in a less-than-ide­al rela­tion­ship with Sime­one, as evi­denced by Felix’s desire to leave the club for a new foot­ball experience.

It will also be a prob­lem for Unit­ed, who can­not afford to jus­ti­fy such a high trans­fer fee in just six months.

Eric Ten­hag has already said the club won’t ‘burn’ mon­ey, and giv­en the club’s over­spend­ing over the sum­mer, it’s not like they can afford it either sport­ing­ly or financially.

For­mer Chelsea and Arse­nal star Olivi­er Giroud has been eyed as a pos­si­ble tar­get for Jan­u­ary, but the French­man hopes to receive a new offer from AC Milan before his cur­rent con­tract expires.

Unit­ed have just kept sev­en goals clean in three Pre­mier League games.

But with Don­nie van de Beek’s trau­mat­ic injury and Antho­ny Mar­tial’s fit­ness prob­lems com­ing to light, the team’s staffing issues have become even more apparent.

Mar­cus Rash­ford has been scor­ing goals this sea­son, but I don’t know who will be able to do so if he fails.

Ten Hag have ruled out send­ing Sun­der­land loa­nee Ama­do Dial­lo back, while fresh­ly-returned Jadon San­cho remains out of action.