Manchester United's Pursuit of Aurelien Tchouameni Continues
Manchester United’s pursuit of Aurelien Tchouameni is not quite dead after all.
Despite the France midfielder agreeing a new long-term contract with Real Madrid until 2031, respected Manchester United reporter Andy Mitten says the European champions could still be tempted to cash in this summer.
United keep the Tchouameni dream alive
Michael Carrick’s rebuild already has serious midfield weight. Andrey Santos has arrived from Chelsea, while United have activated the £45 million release clause in Youri Tielemans’ Aston Villa contract.
Yet the message from Old Trafford is clear: they want one more midfielder. A top-tier anchor. The kind of player you build a title-chasing side around.
For INEOS and United’s hierarchy, that ideal profile has long had a name: Aurelien Tchouameni.
The 26-year-old is among the elite defensive midfielders in the game and is currently starring for France at the 2026 World Cup, adding another layer of shine to a CV that already includes LaLiga and Champions League titles with Real Madrid, plus the UEFA Nations League in 2021 and a World Cup final appearance in 2022.
France are into the semi-finals this summer, and Tchouameni is again at the heart of it. If Les Bleus go all the way, his stock climbs even higher.
So when Fabrizio Romano and other leading journalists reported last week that Tchouameni had agreed fresh terms at the Bernabeu until 2031, most assumed the door slammed shut on any United move.
Mitten isn’t convinced.
“They could still sell him”
Speaking on Talk of the Devils, Mitten revealed what he was told by a Madrid contact shortly after the new deal was announced.
“When I spoke to somebody in Madrid after he had signed the contract, let me just read the text back – ‘They could still sell him’,” Mitten said. “So, there you go. ‘They could still sell him. I will try to find out’.”
The extension, then, does not automatically equal a lifetime guarantee in white. It strengthens Madrid’s hand. It protects value. It also leaves the door ajar if a huge offer lands on Florentino Pérez’s desk.
“This isn’t the first time that this has happened, where a Real Madrid player has benefitted from Manchester United’s interest,” Mitten added, pointing to a long history of Madrid players leveraging Old Trafford admiration into improved terms.
United’s admiration is not in question.
“Utd were interested in him, as you would be, because he’s very good,” Mitten said. He also stressed that Tchouameni is “perfectly happy in Madrid” but would be “perfectly happy to play for Manchester United” if the situation changed.
That “situation” is where this story really lives.
Madrid want to buy big – so who do they sell?
Mitten’s conversations with journalists following the Spanish national team around the United States painted a familiar picture at Madrid: grand plans, big names, and the financial reality that something has to give.
“One of the points put to me was Real Madrid want to buy big, so they need to sell big,” he explained.
That leads to the obvious question: who brings in the kind of fee that funds another marquee arrival?
Fede Valverde has effectively been ring-fenced. “Fede Valverde has been told that he’s going to be captain,” Mitten said, joking that if the Uruguayan doesn’t fancy the armband, Old Trafford would happily take him. There is “no issue there.”
Eduardo Camavinga, for all his quality, would not command the same monster fee as Tchouameni.
So the France midfielder naturally sits in that uncomfortable bracket: one of Madrid’s best players, one of their most valuable assets, and therefore one of the few who could generate the sort of money that changes a transfer window.
That is why Mitten refused to treat the new contract as a full stop.
“I saw it sort of going off like a light – that’s it, Manchester United won’t be signing him,” he said. “I wasn’t quite so sure that you can write off any deal until the transfer window has closed.”
A long shot, but not a fantasy
Mitten is not selling a dream. He’s realistic about the scale of the task.
When asked if there is a genuine chance, his response was blunt: “It looks improbable. I think it always looked improbable.”
The only route he sees is a financial one: “I think the chance comes if Real Madrid decide that they want to sell one of their very best players because they need money, and money dictates a lot of things in football.”
That’s the crux of United’s hope.
If Madrid decide to balance the books with one seismic sale, Tchouameni’s name will sit high on the list of candidates. If they don’t, he stays, and United look elsewhere.
Until that decision is made in the Bernabeu boardroom, though, the dream of seeing one of the world’s premier holding midfielders anchoring Carrick’s new-look United can’t quite be filed under impossible.
Improbable, yes. But in a summer where Madrid want to buy big and United are desperate to step back among Europe’s elite, improbable is sometimes where the biggest deals begin.
