According to a report on the Mirror website, Manchester United have made a £12.5million bid to land Birmingham City’s young starlet Jude Bellingham.
16-year-old Bellingham, who isn’t 17 until the end of June, is a youngster rising to the top and the Mirror’s Neil Moxley writes that the Red Devils “are trying to steal a march on their rivals” in attempting to land the Championship wonderkid.
Bellingham was only promoted from Birmingham’s Under-18 set-up at the start of July last year and is now a first-team regular after having bypassed the Under-23s. He’s featured in 23 of the Blues games this season and has a return of three goals and one assist to his name.
Moxley says that the Manchester giants “are at the forefront of the race” to land the youngster who continues to impress game after game. He adds that two clubs, including Manchester United, are said to have made “formal approaches” for the youngster and that these clubs are only two clubs vying for Bellingham’s signature amongst some of “the biggest clubs in Europe.”
Details are yet to be seen in the public domain but Moxley states that “Birmingham are being offered a hefty downpayment with add-ons expected to take the bid over the £12.5m-mark” as Manchester United and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer look to “hoover up [the] best talent in the country.”
At this level of interest and brandishing a chequebook that could easily accommodate such a hefty purchase, it would be interesting to see whether this would be something that Birmingham could turn down.