Manchester United are lining up a £25m bid for Fulham teenager Ryan Sessegnon during the January transfer window, according to a Guardian report this afternoon.
Jose Mourinho apparently sees Sessegnon as a long-term successor to Luke Shaw at left back and is prepared to allow the former Southampton full-back to leave Old Trafford in order to fund Sessegnon’s arrival. The England youth international, who scored his first senior hat-trick at Sheffield United last month, turned down approaches from a whole host of leading English and European clubs to sign a three-year contract with Fulham over the summer.
Sessegnon has been continually linked with a move away from Craven Cottage – most regularly to Tottenham – but has publicly professed his love for the club which gave him and his twin brother, Steven, their opportunity to progress to professional football. Fulham have already rebuffed enquiries from Spurs and are thought to be confident of holding onto Sessegnon in the forthcoming transfer window as the European Under 19 Championship winner recognises that regular first-team football, which he is getting under Slavisa Jokanovic, is critical to his development.
For his part, Jokanovic insisted he was confident of holding onto the highly-rated youngster during yesterday’s press conference.
Yes [I am confident], if we want to be competitive we must keep our important players. All the questions are what the value of this player is, but myself, as a coach, I prefer to stay with the more important players for the competition that is ahead of us, but on the other side I can understand the business side too.
In this moment, I am not thinking of being without him for the season, but it is not under my control.
Sessegnon has made 53 first-team appearances for Fulham since making his first-team debut at Leyton Orient in the League Cup last season and scored 11 goals.
