Former Manchester United assistant manager Rene Meulensteen has claimed that new signing Lenny Yolo was a player Alex Ferguson considered signing during his time at the club.
The former Lille centre-back joined the club earlier this month and was seen as a big coup when he moved for a fee of £52 million, with Real Madrid showing strong interest in the Frenchman during the transfer window but unable to spend as much as United after paying big for Kylian Mbappe.
Yolo impressed for United in pre-season but was injured in the early hours of Sunday morning’s win over Arsenal and is now out indefinitely. The extent of the injury is unclear, but United are hopeful he will return to the squad as soon as possible.
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Meulensteen had told talkSPORT before the injury that he approved of the move and that Ferguson would agree: “For a long time, from Manchester United’s perspective, going back to Sir Alex Ferguson’s time, we didn’t want to buy any players over the age of 23,” he said.
“Apart from Robin van Persie, the majority of the players who have joined have been under 23 years old. That is definitely the case with Lenny Yolo.”
United’s defeat of Real Madrid in the final minutes of the season was compared to Real Madrid’s signing of teenage French prodigy Raphael Varane, with Ferguson visiting Varane’s family to try and persuade him to join the Reds, but was eventually forced to admit defeat when the La Liga giants clinched the deal.
Many experts and critics have drawn comparisons between Yolo and Varane as they have drawn similarities between the two in terms of their defensive playing style and how they performed early in their careers.
