Man Utd set low price tag for Varane to join Ronaldo

Carlo Garganese

• 13 Dec 2023 13:15 GMT
• 3 min read

It is looking increasingly possible that Raphael Varane will leave Manchester United this January.

Todofichajes reports that Al-Nassr are set to table a bid for Varane, in a move that will see him reunite once again with Cristiano Ronaldo.

The pair played together at Real Madrid and Manchester United, and Ronaldo has reportedly been working on bringing his friend to Saudi Arabia.

United are said to have set an asking price of €15 million and would sell if Al-Nassr paid that much. The Saudi team are prepared to offer a big contract for the centre back.

Speculation has risen in recent weeks that Varane will leave Man Utd in January in search of first team football.

The World Cup winner has lost his place in the United first team and started just two of the last six matches, the latter in the defeat to Bayern Munich only due to the absence of Victor Lindelof.

He has fallen so far down the centre back order that Jonny Evans, Lindelof and Luke Shaw have all been preferred to him as Harry Maguire’s centre back partner.

The Daily Telegraph reported last month that there is a “strained relationship” between Varane and Ten Hag after the Dutchman dropped the centre back.

What did Ten Hag say?

Ten Hag rejected these reports of a fall-out: “Absolutely not. As I said, it is about tactical reasons why I chose these partnerships. I think Harry [Maguire] and Jonny [Evans] did well,” Ten Hag said.

“What I said last year, Harry [Maguire] didn’t play a lot, so I was very happy with Rapha [Varane]’s performances. I have always been happy with his performance. But in this moment, Harry is playing very well and there is internal competition.”

Ten Hag appeared to suggest that Varane and Maguire are not an ideal partnership.

“There are moments in certain games where they [Maguire and Varane] can play together and they have already proven they can do it,” he said.

“But the build-up is not that fluid when one of them is playing from the left centre-back position,” explained Ten Hag.

This would suggest that Ten Hag will generally pick either Maguire or Varane, and not both, although they did start together against Bayern.

Todofichajes adds that Varane would prefer to stay in Europe but will consider Al-Nassr in January.

Varane joined Man Utd from Real Madrid in 2021 but has not impressed like he did during 10 brilliant years in Spain.