According to a report by Sky Sports’ Rob Dorsett and Derbyshire Live., Manchester United and Liverpool are both monitoring Derby County youngster Kaide Gordon, who has been described as the “best 16-year-old in the country.”
Derby are currently in financial trouble at present and are trying to resolve this by selling their top youth assets, as opposed to their first team players.
#dcfc youngster Kaide Gordon being closely monitored by #mufc and #lfc among others. Described as “the best 16yr old in the country” and by Wayne Rooney as “one of our best” he’s expected to leave Derby for a seven-figure sum plus sell on clauses, in the next fortnight.
— Rob Dorsett (@RobDorsettSky) January 14, 2021
Despite his relatively tender age of 16, his quality is clear to see, with the attacking midfielder already broken into Derby’s U18 side, scoring thrice in eight outings. Gordon won Derby’s player of the year award last season and has already played for the first team, making a substitute appearance in the 4-0 win over Birmingham City.
Newly retired and recently appointed Manager, Wayne Rooney has been particularly impressed by Gordon telling sky –
“ I brought Kaide up with the first-team initially to train with us for a week to see how he reacted to it, and he was one of the best trainers.I kept him with us for a couple of week and he’s been training at the same level if not to a better level to a lot of the other [first-team] players.”
Kaide Gordon saw how good United were, earlier this season. He could not stop United’s table topping U18 side running rampant and beating Derby 4 to nill back at the end of October.
A fortnight later , he showed his class by netting a hattrick against Blackburn, when his side beat them 5 – 1. What’s even more impressive is the fact he could have scored even more, had he not been subbed off at the 54th minute, moments after capping off the hattrick.
The left footed kid can play as an attacking midfielder, on the right or even on the left. He grabbed his hattrick while playing on the right wing, but is more of an creative winger rather than a traditional one as expected, a la a certain Juan Mata.
According to reports, the England youth international could be available for more than 2 million. To land a player of his quality, albeit raw, could be a steal.
This is exactly the type of deal United should be looking to do, especially with the risk of the Scousers nipping in.
