Manchester United's late pursuit of Bournemouth striker Josh King has ended, with the club ready to explore other options prior to tonight's transfer deadline.
An initial report on Thursday night suggested United had made an approach for the Norwegian striker - who came through the youth ranks at Old Trafford - while a follow up from Sky Sports on Friday afternoon had suggested they had actually seen a bid accepted for the player.
Within an hour, though, their own transfer blog stated United's interest had "cooled" - in quite the departure from the earlier story - and the BBC's Kris Temple has now confirmed that the move won't happen.
🍒 #AFCB fans can breathe a sigh of relief. Club sources confirm to @solentsport that #MUFC have told the Cherries that their pursuit of Joshua King is over.
— Kris Temple (@kristemple) January 31, 2020
United had received encouragement a deal could have been agreed for the player, though they would've had to have met a huge asking price of £50m for the 28-year-old.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side completed a deal for Bruno Fernandes earlier this week, but have made no secret of their desire to sign a striker this month following an injury to Marcus Rashford.
The list of potential targets has been nothing short of ridiculous - with more than 20 strikers linked with moves to Old Trafford since the start of the month. The latest to be linked with moves outside of King on deadline day are Norwich's Teemu Pukki and Chelsea target Dries Mertens, who is out of contract in the summer.
Strikers Man Utd have been linked with this month:
— Scott Saunders (@_scottsaunders) January 31, 2020
Erling Haaland
Islam Slimani
Josh King
Odion Ighalo
Salomon Rondon
Danny Ings
Adolfo Gaich
Willian Jose
Edinson Cavani
Vedat Muriqi
Krzysztof Piatek
And I don’t think that’s even all of them.
Solskjaer suggested in his press conference on Friday morning that any further deals on deadline day are unlikely, though should the right deal present itself it does not seem completely out of the question that someone does arrive prior to the deadline.
The window closes at 11pm on Friday evening.
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Source : 90min