OGC Nice wanted to sign Manchester United duo Kobbie Mainoo and Rasmus Hojlund on loan | OneFootball

In stark contrast to the ‘synergies’ that can be seen between RC Strasbourg Alsace and Chelsea, due to their shared ownership, the multi-club model at INEOS is not fostering such collaboration.

Once again this season, there are three Chelsea players on loan at Strasbourg (Mike Penders, Kendry Paez, and Mamadou Sarr), whilst Mathis Amougou and Ben Chilwell completed permanent moves to the club. Chelsea also – somewhat controversially – announced that their current captain, Emanuel Emegha, would be making the move to Stamford Bridge next season.

There are no such movements between Manchester United and OGC Nice, despite the latter’s desire for that to be the case. “I spoke with Manchester United during the transfer window in order to try and find solutions. We envisaged things, like asking them to sign a player and then loaning us back, but their priority was to sell,” admitted Nice’s sporting director, Florian Maurice.

Manchester United offer player, Nice refuse

Ici Azur have now revealed that Nice were also looking to bring in players from the Red Devils. The radio station understands that, specifically, Le Gym wanted to sign Rasmus Hojlund and Kobbie Mainoo on loan. The former ultimately joined Napoli. The latter remained at Old Trafford but made an official request to depart on loan.

Instead, Manchester United offered a different youth player. Nice decided that the unnamed player was not of the required level to play for the club. As a result, there were no transactions between the clubs this summer, despite UEFA lifting the ban on collaboration between the two clubs.

GFFN | Luke Entwistle