With rumours swirling around Antoine Semenyo, will his past help Manchester United to sign him this January?
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When Antoine Semenyo was a teenager trying to make his way in the cut-throat world of academy football, he didn’t have a great deal of luck, with at least four London clubs turning him down when he went for trials – an experience that he claims he “couldn’t cope” with.
Now, at the age of 25 and with speculation swirling that he will join one of the Premier League’s biggest teams in a £65m January deal, some reports suggest that Semenyo will have the chance to exact a measure of revenge on team like Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur that turned him away – by joining Manchester United, among the teams said to be keen on signing him. But how likely is that to happen this winter, and will Semenyo’s past experiences play a part in his own decision?
Can Manchester United incentivise Antoine Semenyo to sign for them this winter?
In an October interview, Semenyo described the experience of struggling to find a club at which to kick-start his career as a youngster, and at least two of the teams who now seem to want to sign him are among those who turned him down when they had the chance to get hold of him as a youth prospect.
“I think I want to Millwall four times, went to Tottenham, went to Arsenal, went to Chelsea,” he told The Daily Mail. “I went to so many clubs and I just got the same result – never making it. Being so young, I couldn’t really cope with the emotions of rejection. I felt I needed to take a break… go back to school, give myself a year to calm down.”
A decade on, Semenyo, who eventually found an academy place with Bristol City, is a target for Arsenal, Chelsea, and perhaps Spurs as well, depending on which stories you believe. Both Manchester clubs and Liverpool are also interested.
It isn’t clear that Semenyo holds a grudge, but the Manchester press are starting to get a little excited about the possibility of getting hold of one of the best players of the 2025/26 season so far, who has already scored six goals for Bournemouth – and The Manchester Evening News even suggests that plans could be afoot to take the number 24 away from André Onana in order to give it to Semenyo, so he can have the same number he wears for his current club.
It sounds like a fairly thin incentive compared to, say, being the team that offers the highest salary or the best chance of silverware, and it’s worth noting that Semenyo was an Arsenal fan as a child – and they have the number 24 available too, should that be a genuine bargaining chip.
But if United can keep pushing towards European contention again, and keep playing as well as they had prior to Monday’s unexpectedly dismal 1-0 defeat to Everton, they might be able to offer much of what Semenyo wants anyway, and the sheer volume of stories suggesting that they’re keen suggests that their interest is very genuine. So what are the chances that they do indeed sign Semenyo ahead of their rivals and the teams that once turned him down?
Why Semenyo is more likely to end up at Liverpool or Manchester City than Old Trafford
Semenyo’s £65m release clause kicks in for a small portion of the January transfer window, but if he does leave over the winter than Manchester United have a significant problem – the Premier League’s PSR rules.
While top-flight clubs have voted to replace the profit and sustainability rules going forward, they still apply for the 2025/26 campaign and United are believed to have relatively limited headroom after their summer spending, which ran to around £220m.
There is usually some room to amortise costs, of course, but release clauses typically have to be paid in a strict structure for them to be triggered – which is why United ended up paying over Joshua Zirkzee’s release clause when they bought him from Bologna, for instance. They needed to get Bologna to agree to a payment structure which was more flexible for PSR purposes, and so offered extra as an incentive. Bournemouth may not be in the mood to play those kind of games mid-season, and it’s highly unlikely that United can afford £60m up front, as the release clause appears to demand.
That puts teams like Manchester City and Liverpool in the driving seat – other teams in the running either have financial hurdles to clear (including Chelsea) or are not believed to want to spend over the winter (Arsenal), but City and Liverpool have the resources to make a deal happen if they so choose.
If Manchester United are to sign Semenyo, their best hope may be that he opts to stay put until the summer, when his release clause reportedly drops slightly. Not only would it be cheaper, but it would be easier for teams like United and Chelsea to make the money work.
If Semenyo waits the winter out at Dean Court, then United become serious contenders for his signature, and Semenyo will have more choices in front of him – perhaps then we’ll find out whether shirt numbers and the shadow of past rejections has any impact on his decision.