Fulham 'lead race' for £40m West Ham and Newcastle United target

Fulham are said to be 'leading in the chase' to sign Manchester United midfielder Scott McTominay this summer with a host of Premier League clubs interested in the Scotland international.

The Cottagers are likely to be in the market for a defensive midfielder this summer with Joao Palhinha expected to finally complete his switch to Bayern Munich. The Bundesliga giants were on the verge of signing the Portugal international last summer before a deal fell through last minute with Fulham unable to find a replacement.

However, the London club now appears to have concrete interest in McTominay. ManchesterWorld reports that Marco Silva's side are preparing a bid for the player and are currently frontrunners to complete a deal.

Newcastle United, West Ham and Southampton are also named as interested parties in the 27-year-old, who appears to have been deemed surplus to requirements at Old Trafford. McTominay has been with the Red Devils since 2002 and any sale would represent a healthy profit for the club.

West Ham were on the verge of completing a reported £40 million move for McTominay last summer but ended up moving for Edson Alvarez in that position. The player's current deal is set to expire next summer but the club does hold the option for another year.

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McTominay was involved in Euro 2024 action with Scotland but is now set to join Manchester United for pre-season training camp in the USA having exited the competition in the group stage. The midfielder made 43 appearances in all competitions for his club last season, scoring 10 goals and picking up three assists in a confident campaign.

Speaking about the failed West Ham deal last summer, David Moyes recently told BBC Sport: "Lots of managers have hard luck stories about players that get away and McTominay is one of those for me because I tried to sign him for West Ham last summer.

"It was always going to be hard to replace Declan Rice with any one player when he joined Arsenal, and we were not planning to do that - we wanted to bring in a couple of midfielders instead. He is a good all-round midfielder, but to me his best attributes are arriving in the area, or the edges of it, at the right time to score or make some chances.

"McTominay was a player who I felt I needed at the time, but we didn’t quite get it over the line and he went on to score a lot of big goals for Manchester United last season instead."