Manchester United fans believe the club may have dodged a bullet after Dayot Upamecano produced a below-par performance in RB Leipzig's 2-0 defeat to Liverpool on Tuesday night.
Upamecano was all at sea at times as his Leipzig team were outplayed by Liverpool.
The centre-back is considered one of the brightest young defenders in world football, but his performance against Liverpool may have been an indication that he could struggle against the Premier League's best.
This, allied with a poor showing against United in the group stages of the Champions League after Marcus Rashford and co. gave him the run-around, has led many fans to believe that United may have dodged a bullet.
MEN Sport understands that United want to sign a centre-back this summer and are willing to spend a significant sum to bring one to the club. Upamecano was linked until he signed with Bayern Munich ahead of a summer transfer.
The Leipzig defender signed a new contract last summer which included a €42.5million (£37m) release clause which can be activated in the summer. Bayern officially confirmed the deal earlier this month, beating a number of clubs to Upamecano's services.
Fans were disappointed that they had missed out on Upamecano, but after his poor performances against United and now Liverpool, they now believe that they might have dodged a bullet.
Here is the fan reaction from Upamecano's tough Liverpool outing.
United could have signed Upamecano for £1.9m in 2015, but the deal fell through as his adviser Thierry Martinez claimed.
"An intermediary met with us, but there was a difference between the project she presented us and what was actually going to happen," he told So Foot. "A flat was promised, but that changed to a host family with only six return trips for his parents.
"When you uproot a player at such a young age, that isn’t enough. I wanted Dayot to have a stable emotional balance off the pitch."
And in 2016, Upamecano explained why he decided to join RB Salzburg and not a bigger club.
"When you go to a really big club as a young player, it can be that case that you end up spending a lot of time on the substitutes’ bench," he said, as reported by the Mirror.
"The discussions with the management here in Austria convinced me. I went to see the training centre and the Arena with my parents, and you have to say that the facilities in Salzburg are really first-class. I always felt really appreciated from the start and I was expecting to make a lot of appearances here."
