Bayern Munich sporting director Christoph Freund has praised Manchester United youngster JJ Gabriel as reports in Germany continue to underline the scale of interest in the teenager.<\/p>\n
United are not compelled to agree to Gabriel\u2019s exit request, with his youth contract running until the end of the season. Even so, the 15-year-old is attracting attention from across Europe, with clubs hopeful of persuading him with a clearer path to first-team football.<\/p>\n
Speaking to BILD, Freund was careful not to go beyond admiration when asked about Bayern\u2019s involvement. He said: \u201cWe know the player because he is very, very talented. An exceptional talent. But I can\u2019t say anything more about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
When pressed again on whether Bayern are in talks over a move, Freund replied: \u201cNot at the moment,\u201d although BILD suggested that stance may not tell the full story.<\/p>\n
The report claims Bayern have been in \u201cclose contact\u201d with Gabriel and his father, who represents him, since February. According to the same account, the Bundesliga champions made their interest clear from that point if an opportunity to sign him emerged.<\/p>\n
Bayern are not said to be out of the running, but the early signs point elsewhere. Gabriel and his family are understood to be weighing up options from around Europe, with first-team assurances a key factor. United were reportedly prepared to give him a senior debut during the midweek defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion, only days after his exit demand.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Fabrizio Romano said Real Madrid are leading the race for Gabriel, a view since echoed by several outlets in England and Spain. More recently, Mario Cortegana of The Athletic said Madrid are \u201cvery confident\u201d of winning the chase for a player whose move would cost no more than \u20ac1 million ($1.2 million) in compensation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bayern\u2019s interest in JJ Gabriel has been acknowledged, while Real Madrid are said to lead the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1062,179,987],"tags":[59,182],"class_list":["post-19744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bayern-munich","category-manchester-united","category-real-madrid","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}