Gossip: Man Utd 'face competition from Chelsea for Skriniar', Barcelona 'open Neymar talks'

Manchester United have struggled since their central defence since David Moyes arrived at the club, but they still face obstacles in fixing the problem position.

The first difficulty is that they now face competition for Inter Milan defender Milan Skriniar. He has long been linked with United, and has a £70 million price tag. They failed to sign a central defender in the summer transfer window after Ed Woodward decided that Toby Alderweireld was not any better than Marcos Rojo, but Mourinho is continuing to press for reinforcements

Chelsea now want to sign 23-year-old Skriniar to strengthen Maurizio Sarri’s squad. Andreas Christensen and Gary Cahill could both soon leave, and David Luiz is 32 and approaching the end of his career at the top of his game, meaning Skriniar is on the shortlist for the club, reveals the Sun.

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Another problem in improving the defence could be that Chris Smalling is set to stay at the club. He has rarely met the required standards, but because his contract is running out, United want to offer him a new deal on £120,000 a week in order to preserve his resale value. That will make him harder to shift to any club that would better fit his talents. There is some positive news, the Mail says, after they were linked to Fiorentina’s 21-year-old Serbia international Nikola Milenkovic.

Ander Herrera, another in contract talks with United, is disappointed he was been offered only a slight increase on his current £70,000-a-week wages, which may be a sign the club do not really wish to retain him for the future.

Barcelona want Neymar return

Barcelona and Neymar have started initial discussions on a potential move back for the Brazilian international to the Nou Camp.

The first demand is that Neymar would have to make a public statement acknowledging that he was too rash in his exit to Paris, which led to a breakdown in the relationship between the player and fans back in Spain. The next is that he would likely have to take a paycut on his current terms of €40 million a year.

With the two sides currently in legal action over claims of monies owed to both sides, another requirement to allow any return to happen would be to bring a close to any outstanding issues. In order to finance the move for the 26 year old Barcelona would be happy to offer either Ivan Rakitic or Ousmane Dembele in order to finance the move, Goal reports.

Llorente linked with Leeds move

Fernando Llorente has spoken of finding it hard to deal with life on the substitutes’ bench at White Hart Lane, and he could now drop down a division in the pursuit of more first-team football.

The Sun links the 33 year old with Championship side Leeds United, who are managed by Llorente’s former Athletic Bilbao coach Marcelo Bielsa. The striker scored over 100 goals for the Basque club, and is available for £4 million as Spurs look to raise funds before losing him on a free transfer at the end of the season, say the Sun.