£51m Man United bid REJECTED and Liverpool are now ready to take advantage

Manchester United have seen a £51m bid rejected for one of Portugal’s hottest prospects. Liverpool are ready to take advantage.

Record claims Manchester United have bid £51m for Benfica midfielder Joao Neves. The 19-year-old has been a revelation this season, replacing Enzo Fernandez for the Portuguese side and thriving.

That has naturally led to massive interest in the teenager. Benfica don't exactly want to sell Neves, however, and it will take an enormous fee to get him - despite only having a little over a year of regular football to his name.

Liverpool are supposedly one of the clubs courting Neves. Manchester City, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich are also interested, so this isn't exactly an easy race to win.

Especially as Record's report suggests Benfica won't accept anything under £100m for Neves. They received comfortably over that for Enzo, after all, and it's possible that Neves actually has more potential than the Argentine.

Though, there's a long way to go before we can say that with any certainty. It'll come down to whether a club is willing to take an enormous gamble on it being true and lock down one of the best up-and-coming midfielders around.

Should Liverpool sign Joao Neves?

Liverpool do have the money to sign Neves. We know that as they quite publicly offered £115m for Moises Caicedo last summer.

If the player is the right one, the club will find the cash. It's just difficult to imagine that Neves is the right player. Liverpool's problems last season almost certainly can't be fixed by signing a teenager who needs time to develop.

But we also know they like to do business in Portugal. Both Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez came from Liga Portugal, while they've consistently been linked with Alan Varela of FC Porto.

Could Neves be next? Again, we're not sure they'll be the ones to take the risk. It'll entirely depend on one question: how good can Neves be? If they answer that and like what they see, a massive-money offer could follow.