Man Utd Could Seal 1st January Signing If They Pay £10.5M More After Opening Bid For Young Iniesta Is Rejected

BACK Man Utd have had a €28m (£24.5m) offer turned down for Olympiakos midfielder Christos Mouzakitis, according to reports in the Greek media. SportTime claims that the Red Devils’ opening proposal was higher than the one they have received from Real Madrid but it is still short of the teenager’s asking price. Olympiakos are said to be demanding that United and Real pay €40m (£35m) for Mouzakitis, which is €12m (£10.5m) more than the Manchester club’s proposal. At the moment, there is no indication that another bid will be lodged for the Greek international. Mouzakitis is a genuine target These reports from Greece have not come out of the blue. United were first linked with the teenager all the way back in February. At the time, he was described as a young Andre Iniesta. Since then, a report by The Sun last month and a story by two respected Daily Mail journalists have confirmed the club’s interest in Mouzakitis. Will this impact Man Utd’s pursuit of other midfielders? Mouzakitis is very much one for the future, so he is unlikely to be the Red Devils’ top target to strengthen in the middle of the park, despite his clear potential. The likes of Crystal Palace’s Adam Wharton, Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson and Brighton’s Carlos Baleba are among the other names who have been mentioned as potential options. Signing Mouzakitis in January would, however, affect the transfer budget, and it would make recruiting another midfielder before the end of the season much less likely. The club is keen to bring in promising young players, and Mouzakitis undoubtedly fits into that bracket, so we shall have to wait and see whether they do match Olympiakos’s asking price over the coming days and weeks. Read more about the Manchester United First Team Squad for 2025/26 here David Tully David has worked as a football reporter for the last fifteen years. Having started as an intern at Snack Media, he then went on to become a freelancer, working on various different sites. At the start of 2023, he took up his current role as content writer for the Football News Network.