Erling Haaland is a legitimately world-class player already.

Still just 20, he is a bedrock of the Borussia Dortmund team and has been ever since his arrival in 2019.

This season, already, he has been in genuinely explosive form.

In total, the Norway international has scored 25 goals in 24 games this season, including eight in five in the Champions League.

In all of his last three appearances in Europe, he has scored a brace, netting twice against Club Brugge, at home and away, and then scoring twice earlier this week in the 3-2 win over Sevilla.

So it is little surprise, then, that he is being touted as a potential target for the biggest clubs in the world this summer.

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Haaland has a release clause at Dortmund that comes into effect in 2022 and stands at €75m (£64.9m). In football parlance, that’s what’s known as an ‘absolute bargain’.

However, he has been so good that it seems that he could instead move this summer, and that would give Dortmund the power to dictate the fee.

Sport Witness carries a report from Calciomercato claiming that Manchester United have joined the chase for the striker, alongside Manchester City and Real Madrid.

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The auction, they claim, will begin this summer.

No fee is mentioned but the report does state that it is unlikely Haaland will be at Dortmund beyond the summer.

He is valued at £99m by Transfermarkt which, given his current form, still feels a little on the low side.

GIVEMESPORT’S Harry Sherlock says…

Haaland’s numbers are ridiculous.

He has a non-penalty goals xG rate – the rate of expected goals without penalties per game – of 0.96, which is the same number as Robert Lewandowski at Bayern Munich. The average, by comparison, is 0.41, per fbref.

That places him in the top 1% of all strikers in the top five leagues in the world.

It is mind-blowing.

Now, of course, there is history with Haaland and Manchester United, given that his father was injured by Roy Keane in a Manchester derby, but few can argue against United’s interest.

Haaland is world-class and he’s 20! If they have anywhere near the amount of money required to bring him to Old Trafford, they have to try.