Wednesday saw the emergence of a story involving Manchester United and Milan’s Leonardo Bonucci.

Premium Sport in Italy were the ones running it (with Duncan Castles also covering it earlier), claiming José Mourinho had turned to the 31-year-old in order to bring some ‘temperament’ to his defence after some mixed performances from his centre-backs last year.

The Serie A side’s FFP issues could be key in the deal, especially if Milan’s appeal at CAS is rejected, forcing them to miss out on the Europa League for the next two seasons.

Corriere dello Sport have a follow-up story in their Thursday edition, confirming that Mourinho is a big fan of Bonucci with talk of a €40m valuation for the veteran centre-back.

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Bought for €42m last summer, selling the former Juventus star for that amount would allow Milan to make their money back.

Manchester United’s manager is said to ‘know perfectly that an auction could take place’ (with Manchester City, PSG and Chelsea briefly mentioned as potential competition), and that’s why he would like to close the deal ‘quickly’, even if ‘it won’t be easy’ to do so.

Milan will be wanting to hold keep as many as their most valued assets as possible following Wednesday’s FFP decision, but if Bonucci starts pushing for an exit, especially for a club who will be playing in the Champions League next season, there might not be a lot they can do about it.