Aston Villa have been named as one of several clubs with an interest in swooping for Marcus Thuram this summer as he heads towards becoming a free agent.
The 25-year-old is enjoying a productive season so far this year, scoring 14 goals and providing four assists in 22 appearances for Borussia Monchengladbach.
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With nine caps for France to his name too having been a member of their World Cup squad last year, it appears as though he has a big future at club and international level moving forward.
However, with his current contract with the Bundesliga outfit set to expire this summer, their sporting director Roland Virkus has confirmed that he will be leaving on a free transfer at the end of the season, as per Sport, and Villa are named in the report as one of the clubs who could be monitoring the Frenchman’s situation.
It’s added that Barcelona are strong favourites to land him if they have a concrete interest in signing him this summer, while Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Inter, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Chelsea, Newcastle Utd and Arsenal are all specifically named as being interested parties too.
In turn, should Villa have a genuine interest in Thuram, we’ll seemingly have a major battle on our hands to fend off the competition and add him to Unai Emery’s squad, but time will tell who makes official offers to him and which proposal is the most appealing for Thuram both financially and from a football perspective.
This isn’t the first time that he has been linked with a move to Villa, with the Express reporting back in December that he was being lined up as one of Emery’s first additions to his squad.
With Villa opting not to add a winger in January as Emery has stressed that he will only sign players who significantly improve his current group, it might have made sense to wait for Thuram in the summer, particularly if he can be signed on a free.
That’s ultimately just a theory at this stage, but it promises to be an exciting and intriguing summer transfer window for Villa as Emery is certainly expected to be backed heavily by the hierarchy.