Manchester United table opening bid for Leipzig's Yan Diomande as Liverpool circle
Manchester United have stopped flirting and made a move. The club have submitted an opening bid for Yan Diomande, RB Leipzig's 19-year-old Ivorian winger, in what is shaping up to be one of the noisiest transfer stories of the European summer.
The numbers are eye-watering. Reports out of England put United's first offer at around 78 million pounds. Leipzig are not biting. The Bundesliga side have privately set their valuation north of 100 million euros, with figures around 115 million circulating in Germany, and they have already begun pushing Diomande to sign an improved contract that would give them a stronger negotiating position.
A breakout season nobody saw coming
Diomande only arrived at Leipzig from Leganes last summer. Twelve months on, he has 11 goals and eight assists across 30 appearances in all competitions, and the scouting network at every serious European club has a file on him. Direct, right-footed, and able to play either flank or through the middle, he is exactly the kind of profile that wins auctions.
United see him as the long-term solution on the left, an area the club has tried to patch up more than once without much joy. The bid is also a signal of intent from a recruitment department that has been criticised for moving too late on younger targets in previous windows, and it lands at a moment when Michael Carrick's side are pushing hard for a Champions League return.
Liverpool's Salah problem
The complication for United is that they are not alone. Liverpool are tracking Diomande just as closely, and the reasoning at Anfield is straightforward. Mohamed Salah is set to leave at the end of the 2025-26 season, and the club's recruitment team has been quietly drawing up a list of forwards who could carry that responsibility for the next decade. Diomande is on it.
Arsenal, Barcelona and Bayern Munich have all been linked too, although none has yet matched the formality of United's bid. If Liverpool decide to commit, the bidding could get very ugly very quickly. Leipzig, who lost Dominik Szoboszlai to Anfield in 2023 for a fee that looked steep at the time and now looks like a bargain, are unlikely to make the same mistake twice.
What happens next
The most likely outcome in the short term is the contract Leipzig have already started discussing with Diomande's camp. A new deal with a substantially higher salary would not stop a sale, but it would let Leipzig set the price rather than negotiate from weakness. United's first offer has put the auction in motion. Whether they end up with the player or simply set the floor for someone else's deal is the question that will dominate the next two months.
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