Robin Le Normand being heavily scouted by Man United | OneFootball

Manchester United are still in the hunt for a new centre-back despite the excellent recent form of Eric Bailly and Victor Lindelof and have turned their attentions to a second French candidate.

The Red Devils are already known to be interested in RB Leipzig’s Dayot Upamecano, whose €42 million release clause will become active in June. But according to Grada3, they have also been scouting one of his countrymen intently.

The name in the frame is Real Sociedad’s Robin Le Normand, who has excelled at the Spanish side and has been a key player in their renaissance under coach Imanol Alguacil.

Grada3 claims that Le Normand ‘is being followed intensely by delegates from the Old Trafford club’ and cites the Daily Mail for this information, although reference to that claim cannot be found by The Peoples Person.

Le Normand has a release clause of €75 million (£67 million), which is considerably higher than that of Upamecano – but the club may believe that Sociedad would do business at a lower figure in the summer. However, Grada3 does not think that will be easy.

‘Nobody at Real Sociedad is moved by this interest, made public now,’ the outlet says.

‘If the club can be characterized for something in recent years, it is for not selling and when it does, it is very expensive.

‘This means that if at some point Manchester United want to take one of Imanol Alguacil’s defensive pillars, they will have to use all the splendour of the British chequebook, given that central defenders with skills as complete as those of the Frenchman have a very high market price.’