Thursday 7 November 2019 13:10, UK
Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal may have to be patient in their efforts to lure Red Bull Salzburg's prolific young striker Erling Braut Haaland.
Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus have all launched plans to sign the 19-year old, whose valuation has rocketed beyond £80m, with 23 goals in 17 appearances to his name so far this season.
However Sky Sports News has learned that the 6ft 4in Norwegian striker is also considering a proposal to stay affiliated to the RB group and join Bundesliga outfit RB Leipzig.
Head coach Julian Nagelsmann, a known admirer of Haaland, sees him as a perfect fit in the youngest squad in the Bundesliga, and the player could be attracted by playing alongside other emerging talent like Timo Werner.
Leipzig are up to third in the league after thrashing Mainz and Wolfsburg in the DFB Cup, while they also sit top of Group G in the Champions League after beating Zenit St Petersburg on Tuesday.
The prodigious talent is the son of former Manchester City, Leeds and Nottingham Forest midfielder Alf-Inge Haaland, who has kept a steady hand on his son's development to date.
Leipzig are hoping to convince father and son that the player's development is best suited to working with Nagelsmann and RB's head of sport Ralf Rangnick before he makes the move to one of Europe's elite clubs.
However, United's Norweigian boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has already had the player under his guidance at Molde, where Haaland came through the youth ranks before joining Salzburg on January 1, 2019.
Alf-Inge recently said his son is "built" for the Premier League but is in "no hurry" to make the switch to England after his stunning start to the season in Austria and beyond.
After he became the first player to score seven goals in his first four Champions League appearances this week, his dad told talkSPORT: "At one stage he would like to play in the Premier League, but when that will happen I don't know. It is a very tough league.
"Up to now he is ahead of the stage we thought he would be at. He is built for the Premier League, but whether that will happen now or at a later stage, we don't know.
"He is at Salzburg - a fantastic club playing Champions League - so in a way he is in no hurry.
"They have shown from the past that they are a 'middle step' club and, if they are going to recruit players in the future, they can't put a stupid price tag on the players because nobody would want to go there.
"He was a Leeds fan and a City fan and a Nottingham Forest fan; he followed me obviously, but that is what you do in your youth, It is different being a supporter and having a job, but he was born in Leeds."
