United in fresh link to U-21 midfield star

Manchester United have been linked with a move for The Netherlands' Under-21 star Marco van Ginkel,in a new report in the Daily Express today.

Van Ginkel, who plays for Vitesse, has apparently been monitored by United scouts as Holland made the semi-finals of the European Under-21 Championship, where they lost out in the semi-final to Italy.

United have been linked before, and there were suggestions that David Moyes had been monitoring the player while he was at Everton, but one problem is that Chelsea are also known to be keen. The Blues have a first-option deal with Vitesse, but history and logic shows that these sort of deals rarely mean anything in practice.

Van Ginkel has played centrally of late, but he's also played out wide before, so he could be an interesting move for us in addition to other midfielders, although obviously we'd want to avoid shunting him out to fill any gap in the squad and risk hindering his development.

The end of the report tacks on some more stuff on Cesc Fabregas and Ezequiel Garay (nothing new, merely that United are interested), as well as another mention for the name of Luka Modric - a nice thought, but an unlikely one and not a link that anybody's seemed confident to put in its own story.