Manchester United are ready to 'enter the race to sign Ousmane Dembele' before the Thursday's transfer deadline as boss Jose Mourinho demands new faces ahead of the campaign.
The club have added Lee Grant, Diogo Dalot and Fred already this summer but a central defender and another flair player are high on Mourinho's wishlist.
According to Mundo Deportivo, Mourinho has eyed Dembele, who also fuelled talk of a move to Arsenal having posed with the club's big stars recently, having seen his relationship with Anthony Martial sour.
The 21-year-old has struggled badly with injuries since leaving Borussia Dortmund for Barcelona and after the arrival of Malcom this summer, he may angle for a new start in England.
Mourinho has long said he wishes for two more players before the season with stars such as Harry Maguire, Toby Alderweireld and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic all linked to an Old Trafford switch.
But with little movement during the club's disappointing pre-season tour of America, the Portuguese's relationship with executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward is said to have become strained.
An awkward exchange in the tunnel after the friendly against Real Madrid demonstrated in public for the first time how tense the pair's relationship was and no new arrivals will only likely exacerbate it from Mourinho's side.
'My CEO knows what I want for quite a long time, I know he tries to do the best for me and I still have a few days to wait to see what happens,' Mourinho said on Sunday.
'If we don't make our team better it will be a difficult season for us.'
Prior to that, Mourinho's extraordinary outburst in Michigan where he questioned a number of players and exposed his undeniable anguish at the lack of new faces has cranked up the pressure with two days to go.
United host Leicester City in the opening game of the new Premier League season on Friday night but new faces remains up in the air with Jerome Boateng also on the radar following defeat to Bayern Munich.