{"id":609808,"date":"2026-07-29T10:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T10:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/609808\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T10:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T10:44:11","slug":"man-utd-eye-prem-striker-who-hargreaves-butt-want-them-to-sign-vlahovic-another-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/609808\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Utd eye Prem striker who Hargreaves, Butt want them to sign; Vlahovic another option"},"content":{"rendered":"

Man Utd<\/a> could look to sign Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa as they want a striker to support Benjamin Sesko next season, according to reports.<\/p>\n

The Red Devils went on a brilliant run after Michael Carrick replaced Ruben Amorim last season with Man Utd<\/strong><\/a> managing a third-placed finish and qualification for the Champions League.<\/p>\n

Carrick and the Man Utd recruitment team have identified several positions that they need to improve ahead of next season, with midfield their biggest issue.<\/p>\n

Man Utd have already brought in two new midfielders so far this season and they are looking to add one more before the window shuts.<\/p>\n

A new left-winger and full-back are also on their priority list, while a new striker is something they are also looking at.<\/p>\n

Man Utd are hoping to bring in a more experienced striker to help Sesko next season and The i Paper has revealed that<\/a> both Aston Villa\u2019s Watkins and free agent Dusan Vlahovic are on their list.<\/p>\n

READ: Every Premier League club\u2019s pre-season 2026 fixtures and results<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Perfect option\u2019 Danny Welbeck is on the verge of joining Chelsea and the report adds: \u2018One potential option that has been mentioned is former Juventus striker Dusan Vlahovic, who is a free agent amid interest from Barcelona.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ollie Watkins is another striker United have been monitoring for a while, though Aston Villa are unlikely to sell for anything like the sort of fee the Red Devils would be willing to pay.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hargreaves and Butt wanted Watkins at Man Utd last summer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking at the beginning of last season, Owen Hargreaves and Nicky Butt both expressed their wish that Man Utd had signed Watkins last summer instead of Sesko.<\/p>\n

When asked if he was impressed by the\u00a0 summer business at Man Utd in 2025, Butt told BetMGM: \u201cI was and I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know [Matheus] Cunha has done really well over the last couple of seasons but I would really like an experienced striker.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope I\u2019m wrong but I really hope they aren\u2019t making the same mistakes with [Benjamin] Sesko as they did with Rasmus [Hojlund].<\/p>\n

\u201cA young player coming in with no Premier League experience, it just feels like history repeating itself.<\/p>\n

READ: What is the biggest ever Premier League signing? Pogba? Shevchenko? Wirtz? Ozil? Robinho?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, for what it would have cost, I would have gone and brought in someone like Ollie Watkins, someone to help and pull the young strikers out of a bad patch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen young players are just coming into the club, when the onus is on them to score goals, if they\u2019re having a few bad games they have to have the safety net of being pulled out of the firing line.<\/p>\n

\u201cOllie Watkins, or someone like that, would be who I would have been looking to bring in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking last September,\u00a0Hargreaves added: \u201cYou get Hojlund, who I think is going to be a really good striker, but there\u2019s a lot of pressure, we\u2019ve seen it with Marcus [Rashford] and [Anthony] Martial. They were too young to be dealing with that on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you have that experience with Hojlund where it\u2019s so difficult he has to leave on loan, then you go and buy the same age player in Sesko.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to do it, they\u2019ve got Cunha and Mbeumo, ready-made Premier League players, but then you get a striker who is 22 and not proven at this level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve already done that in that window why wouldn\u2019t you go and get another one, Ollie Watkins or someone of that ilk who is ready. Same thing [with the goalkeeper].\u201d<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Wharton, Garner, Stach: Top 10 defensive midfielders available to sign this summer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Man Utd could look to sign Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa as they want a striker to support…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[4699,58393,257445,18,794,19,17,20,5,86523,795,132],"class_list":["post-609808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aston-villa","tag-benjamin-sesko","tag-dusan-vlahovic","tag-eire","tag-home-page","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-manchester-united","tag-news","tag-ollie-watkins","tag-premier-league","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117002860550300627","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}