Manchester United are set to make a January move to sign Toby Alderweireld from Tottenham, according to talkSPORT.
The radio station claim on their website that “it would be a huge surprise” if the Premier League’s sixth-place club don’t make a fresh swoop for the Belgium international after failing to land him last summer.
TalkSPORT report Spurs have activated an option to extend Alderweireld’s contract by a further 12 months until the summer of 2020, but the deal has a release clause set at £25million from the end of the season.
OPINION
Spurs must batten down the hatches and ensure Alderweireld does not exit the club this month. The Belgian powerhouse is too influential and too reliable to be allowed to leave, even if Man United offer a £40million-plus fee for a player available for £25million in the summer and who will blow out 30 candles on his birthday cake in March. Alderweireld may be about to enter the final stage of his career, but he has far superiors in terms of centre-backs in the Premier League, with only Virgil van Dijk and Aymeric Laporte being consistently more effective this season. Little wonder United are still keen, given the deficiencies in their own rearguard, which is no doubt partly responsible for the far more attacking approach overseen by Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer. Alderweireld is a proven Premier League performer whose standards rarely drop. He has been one of Spurs’ outstanding players this season and they can’t afford to let him go.